Your Organic Food Is Treated With Pesticides, Too
"Organic farmers may use pesticides, so long as they choose from a list of approved options. The USDA organic program does not disallow all pesticides, just “synthetic” ones. (By the way, the term “pesticides” includes both bug sprays and weed killers.)"
"So what remains on our vegetables? The USDA periodically tests produce for pesticide residues; this is the Pesticide Data Program. (The EWG repurposes this data to create their Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists.) But the USDA does not test for the presence of organic-allowed pesticides. So the EWG is reporting the stuff on conventional crops without considering what’s present on organic crops."
"So, will you lower your pesticide exposure by switching to organic? We don’t know, but the answer may very well be no. Even looking at the synthetic, non-organic pesticides in the USDA’s tests, conventional crops don’t always have the lowest amounts. Take strawberries, for example, the “dirtiest” item on the 2018 list: 75 percent of organic strawberries, and 76 percent of conventional strawberries, had pesticide levels that were under 5 percent of the allowable levels. "
