Spring is a great time to refresh your space as well as your habits. As you’re decluttering closets and scrubbing baseboards, don’t forget to turn your attention to your produce drawer. Whether you’re buying from the organic section at your grocery store, picking up from a local farmers market or having fresh goods delivered, the number one rule still applies: wash your fruits and vegetables.

Even though most produce on store shelves is safe to eat, it’s still possible for trace amounts of pesticides, dirt and bacteria to cling to the surface. The good news? You don’t need to panic. According to the US Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program (PDF), over 99% of food tested met Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safety standards — and more than a quarter had no detectable pesticide residue at all.

Still, as part of your spring reset, getting into the habit of rinsing all your produce before eating is a smart move for both your health and peace of mind.

To be clear, some chemicals and pesticide residue are A-OK. Furthermore, not all chemicals found are harmful, so you don’t need to freak out the next time you forget to wash your fruits and veggies. You’ll be okay, and it’s highly unlikely you’ll be ill. That said, there are other concerns to be worried about, such as bacterial dangers and flaws like salmonella, listeria, e.Coli and the germs on other people’s hands.

Certain varieties of produce are more likely to have persistent pesticide residues than others. To help consumers identify which fruits and vegetables are the most contaminated, the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit focused on food safety, publishes a list known as The Dirty Dozen. The group examined 47,510 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture, highlighting those with the highest pesticide levels at the time of sale.

But what’s the no.1 offender for pesticides in The Dirty Dozen’s latest study? Strawberries. It might be hard to believe, but the popular berries had more total instances of chemicals found on them than any other fruit or vegetable included in the analysis.

Below you’ll find the 12 foods most likely to contain pesticides — and the 15 foods least likely to be tainted.

The Dirty Dozen: The fruits and vegetables to always wash

Foods most likely to contain pesticides, according to FDA and USDA data.

1. Strawberries
2. Spinach
3. Kale, collard and mustard greens
4. Grapes
5. Peaches
6. Pears
7. Nectarines
8. Apples
9. Bell and hot peppers
10. Cherries
11. Blueberries
12. Green beans

The Dirty Dozen is a good indicator meant to alert consumers to the fruits and vegetables most in need of thorough washing. Even a quick rinse with water or a spritz of produce wash helps. 

You can also sidestep much of the potential risk by buying certified organic fruits and vegetables that are free from the use of farming pesticides. Knowing which foods are more likely to contain pesticides might help you decide where to spend that bit of extra money on organic. As I learned in an analysis of organic and nonorganic prices, they aren’t as expensive as you might think.

More takeaways from the Dirty Dozen study

• More than 95% of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines and grapes tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides.
• A total of 209 different pesticides were found on Dirty Dozen items.
• Of those 209, over 50 different pesticides were detected on every type of crop on the list, except cherries.
• Kale, collard and mustard greens, as well as hot peppers and bell peppers, had the most pesticides detected of any crop — 103 and 101 pesticides in total, respectively.

Conversely, the EWG found these 15 fruits and vegetables Ieast likely to contain pesticides. 

The Clean 15: Fruits and vegetables you can skip washing

These are the fruits and vegetables least likely to contain pesticides, according to the study:

1. Avocados
2. Sweet corn
3. Pineapple
4. Onions
5. Papaya
6. Sweet peas (frozen)
7. Asparagus
8. Honeydew melon
9. Kiwi
10. Cabbage
11. Watermelon
12. Mushrooms
13. Mangoes
14. Sweet Potatoes
15. Carrots

The Clean 15 were found to have the lowest levels of pesticide contamination across all of the tested samples, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t contaminated by pesticides at all. It certainly doesn’t mean that the fruits and veggies you’re bringing home aren’t contaminated with bacteria, either. You’d be statistically safer consuming unwashed food from the Clean 15 than the Dirty Dozen, but it’s still a good rule of thumb to rinse all of your fruits and vegetables before eating them.

EWG’s methodology involves six measures of pesticide contamination. The analysis focuses on which fruits and vegetables are most likely to contain one or more pesticides but does not measure how much of any one pesticide is on a given piece of produce. You can read more on the EWG’s Dirty Dozen in the published study here.

Washing fruit and vegetables FAQs