Scientists Find a Better Way To Wash Pesticides Off Your Apples (cnet.com)

According to a new study, the best way to reduce pesticides from your supermarket apple is to use a baking soda solution. The discovery was made by a team of scientists from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. They compared the effectiveness of plain tap water, a commercial bleach solution and a baking soda/water mix in removing pesticides from apples. CNET reports: The scientists started with organic Gala apples and applied the fungicide thiabendazole and the insecticide phosmet before testing the different washing liquids. "The baking soda solution was the most effective at reducing pesticide," a release on the study notes. "After 12 and 15 minutes, 80 percent of the thiabendazole was removed, and 96 percent of the phosmet was removed, respectively." The researchers say the industry-standard approach of washing fruit in a bleach solution for two minutes after harvest is not an effective way to completely remove pesticides. They also found the fungicide thiabendazole penetrated into the apple peel much more than the insecticide. Apple lovers would need to remove the peel to also get rid of the pesticide that wasn't washed off with the baking soda solution. The researchers published the findings this week in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Comments

Re:Dose

[JBMcB]

Poisoning yourself at non-lethal levels, still impacts your life,

Except the evidence shows that it doesn't.

Most of the chemicals that comprise the foods we eat are poisonous at certain levels. Even most vitamins and minerals are poisonous as well. Taking small amounts of most types of poison won't poison you a little bit. Usually it does nothing.

Go ahead and eat whatever you like, but keep in mind that nearly everything is poisonous at some point. And, all apple seeds have a chemical that metabolizes into cyanide. So good luck with that :)