A few days ago we told you about the “Dirty Dozen”, the annual ranking drawn up byEnvironmental Working Group (EWG) on pesticide contamination of fruits and vegetables in the US. Now we have something very similar in Italy too and it is The Lifesaver to have drawn it up, with painstaking work based on thousands of laboratory analyzes collected in 11 years of tests.
We are talking about an Italian ranking that lists the fruit and vegetables most contaminated by pesticides and which returns to a now well-known problem: the so-called “cocktail effect“. A phenomenon whereby a food can formally comply with the law despite containing a mixture of different pesticides, each below the regulatory threshold, but potentially risky as a whole. This is because European legislation evaluates the individual substances, without considering the synergistic effects of their combination.
How does it work? The Lifesaver explains that in order not to exceed the maximum residual limits (MRL) set for each individual substance, those who cultivate intensively use mixtures of different pesticides, often with the same function, lowering the doses of each. The result is a product that passes the controls, but which brings with it to the plate a real chemical cocktail on the possible impact on our organism no law has yet ruled on.
Above all, the most vulnerable segments of the population pay the price: children and pregnant women, whose detoxification systems are less effective. The scientific community and oncologists have long denounced the possible link between multiple exposure to low doses of pesticides, endocrine interference and increased risk of certain childhood cancers.
But let’s now come to what interests us most: what are the fruits most contaminated by pesticides in Italy?
The 5 most contaminated fruits
From the ranking of Lifesaver In particular, 5 fruits emerge which, in tests over the last 11 years, have shown the most worrying multi-residue levels.
Table grapes took first place, with peaks of 19 different molecules (10 fungicides, 9 insecticides) detected in a single sample. The thin skin and intensive viticulture make it a real chemical sponge.
In second place, there are pears with 12 different molecules, which undergo numerous treatments during cultivation and in the post-harvest phase to guarantee their conservation, accumulating cocktails of pesticides that are difficult to eliminate even with careful washing.
Strawberries are in third place with 9 different pesticides (7 in the most recent tests). These are delicate fruits, without protective skin to remove, grown in the open field and often treated several times during the season. For years in the blacklist of the international charts (starting from the American Dirty Dozen) they also confirm their position in the Italian one.
Next are the bananas. Despite the thick skin, the tests of Lifesaver they detect the presence of pesticides (6 in total) even within the pulp alone. The culprits are the post-harvest chemical treatments used for preservation during long transportation from tropical countries.
The apple, the fruit most consumed by Italians, closes the ranking but does not cause any less concern for this. Although the peel appears to offer a protective barrier, the pesticides used manage to penetrate to the pulp. Up to 5 pesticides have been found per fruit.
What can we do
Among the substances most frequently detected in tests are some that are very widespread in agriculture, such as boscalid, fludioxonil and tebuconazole. These are mainly fungicides, used to protect fruit and vegetables from mold and parasites, often applied several times during cultivation and even after harvesting to ensure their conservation.
What can we do? The most effective answer remains to prefer certified organic – when possible – especially for the fruits on this list, and always wash fruit and vegetables carefully under running water. For fruits with edible skin, a pass with bicarbonate of soda can help to remove the surface residues a little more.
But the real challenge is regulatory: as long as the law continues to evaluate pesticides one by one, ignoring the cocktail effect, the problem cannot be solved upstream.
