Prioritizing an All-Organic Diet —
Paybacks from Safer, Nutrient-Dense Food
THE STORY: A QUICK OVERVIEW
• An updated OrganicEye white paper challenges the legitimacy of encouraging shoppers to purchase commonly contaminated conventional produce.
• Abundant published research illustrates demonstrably lower agrochemical residues in organic versus conventional fruits and vegetables.
• EWG’s Clean 15 produce is commonly contaminated, according to USDA data, with up to 264 pesticides and their breakdown metabolites. EWG admits that over 40 percent of its “clean” produce items actually contain toxic residues.
• Additional research indicates that when adults and children switch to all-organic diets, levels of pesticide metabolites in their urine drop dramatically.
• The rhetoric from EWG’s report is consistent with messaging from the food industry and regulators in Washington: Price and convenience are of paramount importance in food purchasing decisions rather than personal and family health, farmer/farm worker safety, environmental sustainability, and economic impacts — and pesticide consumption is safe below EPA thresholds.
LA FARGE, WIS. — Every spring the Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases its Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™. For more than two decades, this guide has been distributed to consumers concerned about pesticide contamination in fruits and vegetables. A newly updated white paper from food and farming watchdog OrganicEye questions the legitimacy of encouraging shoppers to purchase commonly contaminated conventional, non-organic produce.
OrganicEye applauds the work EWG has done producing their Dirty Dozen™ list of the most pesticide-contaminated fruits and vegetables — and, at least in the past, recommending shoppers choose certified organic alternatives. However, the organization criticizes EWG’s Clean 15™ list, which recommends conventionally grown fruits and vegetables with relatively lower levels of pesticide residues instead of promoting an all-organic diet — which an abundance of published research indicates would truly provide demonstrably lower exposure to toxic and carcinogenic chemicals.
A myriad of pesticide residues exist on and in fruits and vegetables the EWG recommends as “clean.” More than 40 percent of Clean 15 produce items are contaminated with toxic chemicals.
“The US population has been turned into lab rats in a scientific experiment as more than 90 percent have detectable pesticide biomarkers in their blood or urine,” said Mark A. Kastel, Executive Director of OrganicEye and its senior farm policy analyst. “To reduce pesticide residue exposure, the EWG, in essence, recommends consuming 15 moderately-contaminated, conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. Many of those are far from ‘clean’ and are certainly not the safest choices on the market.”
Based on a wide variety of published research, the primary reason people choose to eat organic is to avoid agrochemical residues in conventional produce and prepared foods, along with synthetic hormones, antibiotics, and other drugs used to treat livestock. Avoiding genetically engineered ingredients is also a key market-driver.
EWG’s report does not consider total aggregate pesticide exposure by consumers in their Shoppers Guide. The metrics EWG uses exclusively focus on the number and relative toxicity of the pesticides present and the frequency with which each of those pesticides are found in individual samples. It does not discuss the overall exposure consumers, especially children, may experience.
For instance, consumers eat large amounts of tomatoes, bananas, and lettuce — none of which are on the Dirty Dozen list, but which, cumulatively, can result in very high pesticide exposure.
Annually, per capita, Americans eat approximately 31 pounds of tomatoes [1], 13.2 pounds of bananas [2], and 11.1 pounds of lettuce [3] — resulting in much more pesticide exposure than that experienced by someone who eats just the annual average of 1.5 pounds of spinach[4], which is #1 on the Dirty Dozen list. According to EWG, “Spinach has more pesticide residues by weight than any other type of produce.” [5]
And while bananas are on the Clean Fifteen list, six different pesticides were present on 44% of those sampled. With tomatoes, ranked #27 on the total EWG list — in between “clean” and “dirty” — the USDA found 30 different pesticides to be present 28.4% of the time. And lettuce, at #33, had 23 pesticides present up to 35.3% of the time.
OrganicEye’s Kastel’s response: “In my book, I would call that dirty!”
As an alternative to EWG guidance, eating an all-organic diet allows consumers the best option to avoid pesticide residuals that can be harmful. Studies clearly show that, in controlled testing where both children and adults first ate conventional foods for a limited time and then consumed exclusively organic foods, the organic diet resulted in markedly lower urinary concentrations of pesticide residue markers than consumption of conventional alternatives. [6]
“This research indicates that, especially for fetuses in utero, lactating mothers, and developing children, a lifetime of risk, including developmental abnormalities, can be mitigated by a modest upfront investment in a safer and more nutritious diet,” Kastel added.
In addition to protecting the safety, nutritional quality, and flavor of food, there are a number of societal benefits when shoppers choose organic food in the marketplace, including protecting the health of farmers, farm workers, and livestock from toxic pesticide exposure, as well as preserving the quality of air, soil, and water.
OrganicEye’s white paper concludes that, what organic has in every bite — including superior nutritional density, as determined by published, peer-reviewed studies — is as important as what it avoids and eliminates.
“In these days of high inflationary pressures,” added Kastel, “it should not be a case of organic versus conventional — even a ‘cleaner-but-not-all-that-clean’ conventional choice — but rather the decision to invest in quality food instead of the latest technological gadget, streaming service, or other consumer goods. It is a long-term investment in the health and well-being of all families and children, yielding a lifetime of benefits. There is undoubtedly an enormous return on investment.”
Given the prevalence and expense of chronic disease in the United States, far eclipsing that in other developed countries, OrganicEye contends that the investment in safer organic food and fresh whole foods, rather than ultra-processed “food-like substances,” has the potential to have a profoundly positive fiscal impact, both individually and societally.
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Will Fantle, OrganicEye’s board secretary-treasurer with decades of experience in organic policy analysis, lamented, “There was almost no mention of certified organic produce in the EWG press release announcing their updated report. And certainly, no encouragement for eaters to choose organic as the well-documented best way to avoid toxic agrochemicals and genetically engineered cultivars.”
If organic food is difficult to find or challenging to afford, some alternatives might include:
- Growing your own produce at home or in a community garden
- Shopping locally at a farmers market
- Joining a CSA farm (Community Supported Agriculture)
- Joining a member-owned food co-op where sale prices and case discounts are often available
For some lower-income families, subsidies for buying fresh, nutritious food at farmers markets and CSA’s are commonly available.
And most food co-ops and independently owned natural food stores that specialize in organic products accept SNAP benefits (food stamps). They are also redeemable, along with other potential aids, at many farmers markets and CSAs.
“For many, investing more time, money, and intention in shopping, gardening, and cooking at home adds meaning and a spiritual connection to food, over and above the documented health benefits,” Kastel concluded. “Buying organic is not just about health, it’s about enjoyment and quality of life.”
The following quotes can be attributed to OrganicEye and/or its Executive Director, Mark A. Kastel:
“Conventional produce can be commonly contaminated with up to 264 different synthetic pesticides! The best way to avoid ingesting herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides is by choosing certified organic food when shopping.”
“EWG, a $22 million a year nonprofit whose revenue includes corporate funding, is an apologist and an enabler for the agrochemical industry and industrial-scale farming. Of course, some folks are struggling just to afford food. But for many Americans in our consumer-driven economy, buying truly safer and more nutritious organic produce is really a choice between the newest iPhone and providing your family with the safest, most wholesome food.”
“While potatoes have not consistently appeared on the Dirty Dozen list, EWG did once again add them in 2026. They specifically cited mold and sprout inhibitors sprayed directly on the skin of the spuds — 95.5% of conventional potatoes have been sprayed with chlorpropham to prevent sprouting. However, that’s nothing new and was true in other years when EWG left potatoes off the dirty list.”
“Potatoes are one of the most multiply-sprayed produce items throughout the growing season, and the number one vegetable in terms of consumption in the United States. Because of the contamination, and per capita consumption, potatoes should never be left off any list of contaminated produce!”
“If we don’t accomplish one other thing in addition to promoting the health and well-being of our families and the environment through our purchase of organic food, we are simultaneously protecting the farmers and farm workers who are responsible for the bounty on our tables from pesticide exposure.”
“Farmers, farmworkers, and their families and children, who very commonly live in housing that is contiguous to farm fields being treated with toxic pesticides, have some of the higher rates of certain cancers and the children have higher rates of asthma. Our food dollars determine the health risks these hard-working people are exposed to.”
“I first came to organics, myself, after nearly being disabled from pesticide poisoning. My physician at the time, a nationally pre-eminent environmental allergist, recommended I eat an all-organic diet while recovering. Today I generally enjoy robust health, not only due to avoiding the agrochemical and drug residues often found in conventional food, which are deleterious to our immune systems, but also because of the unparalleled nutrition inherent in authentic organic production.”
“Lack of focus by the Environmental Working Group on food groups other than fruits and vegetables in their report is an unfortunate omission. Animals producing meat, eggs, or dairy foods concentrate, or bioaccumulate, far more contaminants through their feed than would exist in food produced for human consumption. With what we know about toxins as a cause of cancer and endocrine disruption, consumers would be well-served to prioritize all organic food, not just fresh and frozen produce.”
“The messaging in the EWG report is consistent with the overall food industry and regulators in Washington: The price we pay for food is of paramount concern, with the convenience of processed foods being a close second.”
“The United States has the cheapest food, as a percentage of our gross national product and the incomes of most families, and, by multiples, the most expensive healthcare. This dynamic of cheap, subsidized, industrially produced food has made a lot of agribusiness and healthcare industry investors rich, but does not generally serve the citizenry well.”
Excerpts from the OrganicEye white paper:
Historically, potatoes have been the number one vegetable crop consumed in the US. In 2023, each American consumed 29.7 pounds of fresh potatoes. And nearly 55 percent of all potatoes grown (by weight) were used for fries, chips, and shoestring potatoes. [7]
In addition to the use of insecticides to control insects, it’s a dirty little secret that conventional potato farmers use toxic herbicides to desiccate — kill and dry down — potato crops to even out the harvest and to regulate tuber size in order to facilitate mechanical harvesting. [8]
Herbicides such as carfentrazone-ethyl, diquat, glufosinate-ammonium, paraquat, pyraflufen-ethyl, and sulfuric acid can be applied between 5 and 9 days before harvest, depending on the product. And that’s in addition to other chemicals that are sprayed on the crop post-harvest, such as chlorpropham, which acts as a sprout inhibitor.
