Eat Fruits and Veggies, Ignore Yearly Dirty Dozen False Food Alarm

Florida’s residue numbers are junk science at its worst. They aren’t peer-reviewed, and the evaluation method is not disclosed;

Jack Dini ——Bio and Archives--February 23, 2026

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Food bank funding has been suspended, the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) budget is facing significant cuts, 47.4 million Americans experience food insecurity and inflation is impacting the budgets of so many consumers. And yet, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) decides to use its time and resources to release and promote another ‘Dirty Dozen’ list. (1)

EWG’s misguided focus is to convince you to spend even more money on your groceries by promoting more expensive forms of fruits and vegetables through denigrating and unfairly maligning affordable and accessible produce items.

The basis of EWG’s unscientific and gimmicky list is to attempt to convince you to substitute organic forms of produce for conventional by calling convential ‘dirty’ and using unfounded rhetoric to discourage you from buying the most popular fruits and vegetables. They do this despite the fact that decades of studies and government data have shown conventionally grown produce is safe and exceptionally nutritious. (1)

EWG paints organic foods as if they do not have pesticide residues. This is false.

Many consumers believe that by buying organic they are eliminating exposure to pesticide residues. This erroneous concept is often encouraged by some of those who market organic products or those who advocate for organic. There is a long list (1,700 products) of these materials allowed on organic published the l Organic Material Review Institute. The pesticides on this list are definitely real pesticides and so they have to be registered for use by the EPA like any other pesticide. (2)

Another item about pesticides. We........

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