The Dirty Dozen Plus™
For the past eight years, EWG has scrutinized pesticide testing data generated by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration and has created its signature Dirty Dozen™ list of foods most commonly contaminated with pesticides. As well, we publish our Clean Fifteen™list of the foods least likely to be pesticide-tainted.
This year we have expanded the Dirty Dozen™ with a Plus category to highlight two crops — green beans and leafy greens, meaning, kale and collard greens – that did not meet traditional Dirty Dozen™ criteria but were commonly contaminated with highly toxic organophosphate insecticides.
These insecticides are toxic to the nervous system and have been largely removed from agriculture over the past decade. But they are not banned and still show up on some food crops.
