Photo courtesy: Yelm Farmers Market


– Yelm Farmers Market opens May 28
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– “Strawberries, Spinach Top Dirty Dozen List of Produce Containing Pesticides”
“Report finds pesticide residues often remain on fruits and vegetables even after they are washed”

“For the second year in a row, strawberries topped the “Dirty Dozen” list of pesticide-contaminated produce that the Environmental Working Group complies every year. Spinach was a close second on the list of fruits and vegetables to avoid released by EWG last evening.”

“The analysis also found that nearly 70 percent of the 48 different conventional produce samples tested by the USDA were contaminated with residues of one or more pesticides. In all, USDA researchers found 178 different pesticides and pesticide breakdown products in the thousands of fruit and vegetable samples tested in 2016.

The pesticide residues remained on fruits and vegetables even after they were washed and, in some cases, peeled.”

“‘Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables is essential no matter how they’re grown, but for the items with the heaviest pesticide loads, we urge shoppers to buy organic,’ Sonya Lunder, EWG senior analyst and lead author of the guide said in a statement. ‘If you can’t buy organic, the Shopper’s Guide will steer you to conventionally grown produce that is the lowest in pesticides.’

The Shoppers Guide also includes “Clean Fifteen” — a list of produce least likely to contain pesticide residues,” Maureen Nandini Mitra, Earth Island Journal.
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