This very popular fruit is the fruit most contaminated by pesticides, it is better to buy it organic

Eating at least 5 fruits and vegetables per day is one of the rules guaranteeing a healthy and balanced diet according to the National Nutrition and Health Program (PNNS). This habit, which is very good for your health, is only so if you do not exceed the recommended number of servings of fruit per day, since some are particularly rich in sugar. Be careful, however, at a time when almost half of the fruits we consume on a daily basis are imported from abroad, eating a fruit we love or a green vegetable can prove to be more risky for our health than this. that one might believe. Indeed, many fruits are full of pesticides, according to a study conducted by the Environmental Working Group, an American non-profit organization.

To arrive at such revelations, the EWG screened more than 47,510 samples from 46 fruits and vegetables. This allowed him to determine that only 15 of them have low quantities of pesticide residues. The organization has also drawn up a ranking of 12 of the most contaminated fruits and vegetables of all in 2024. Bad news, the fruit that tops this ranking is none other than a delicious red fruit. In fact, it is the strawberry which gets the prize for the fruit that contains the most pesticides this year. It would therefore be better to choose exclusively strawberries from organic farming at the market and supermarket, especially if you eat a lot of them.

Pesticides: fruits are more contaminated than vegetables!

Thanks to this study on the contamination of fruits and vegetables by pesticides, we see that of the 12 fruits and vegetables containing the most pesticides, 8 are fruits.

Fruits are therefore even more at risk than vegetables, and we have every interest in purchasing as many of them as possible from organic farming.

Pesticides in fruits and vegetables: here are the risks for our health

The biggest known health risk linked to pesticides is not dietary exposure, unless of course accidental ingestion of the product. It is rather when they are used in a professional environment (i.e. for farmers) that pesticides – then used in high doses – prove to be the most harmful. Foodstuffs contaminated by pesticides are regularly monitored to guarantee the safety of the population, so as not to exceed certain levels which would be dangerous.

However, despite these regulatory thresholds, it is still difficult to know what the long-term effects of exposure through food, admittedly low but regular, would be if you are a keen consumer of all the fruits and vegetables most contaminated with pesticides. As the Ministry of Health indicates: “Epidemiological studies have highlighted links between exposure to pesticides and the risk of the appearance of cancerous, neurological pathologies or even reproductive disorders”.

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