A Few Bad Apples
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A Few Bad Apples... Pesticides in Your Produce Why Supermarkets should ‘Test and Tell’ TODD HETTENBACH E NVIRONMENTAL TM W ORKING GROUP RICHARD WILES Acknowledgments Special thanks to Clark Williams-Derry and Laurie Valeriano for collecting samples from supermarkets and to Chris Campbell for designing and producing this report. One Bad Apple was made possible by grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Turner Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Pew Charitable Trusts or other supporters listed above. Environ- mental Working Group is responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation contained in this report. Copyright © March 2000 by the Environmental Working Group. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Printed on recycled paper. Environmental Working Group The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C. The Environmental Working Group is a project of the Tides Center, a California Public Benefit Corporation based in San Francisco that provides administrative and program support services to nonprofit programs and projects. Kenneth A. Cook, President Richard Wiles, Vice President for Research Mike Casey, Vice President for Public Affairs To order a copy Copies of this report may be ordered for $20.00 each (plus 6% sales tax or $1.20 for Washington, D.C. resi- dents) and $3.00 for postage and handling. Payment must accompany all orders. Please make checks payable to: Environmental Working Group 1718 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Suite 600 Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 667-6982 (phone) (202) 232-2592 (fax) [email protected] (e-mail) www.ewg.org This report and many other EWG publications are available on the World Wide Web at www.ewg.org www.foodnews.org To find out which pesticides are on the food you eat every day along with information on their health risks and what you can do to reduce them, visit our new web site at www.foodnews.org. Big Bad Apple Foreword You stroll into the produce Of course, in the back of your Some crops of apples department of your local super- mind you hear a voice scolding and other produce you for this “emotional” purchas- market—a Kroger, a Safeway, simply come to market almost any supermarket—and the ing behavior (albeit in a food much cleaner than first thing you see are those store that assaults you with gorgeous mounds of fresh, ripe emotional appeals on every others. apples. aisle…). Could be the voice of a pesticide company flack. Could Granny Smiths, Fuji’s, Red be a grocery executive or an Delicious, Golden Delicious, apple industry lobbyist or a Gala…. All your favorites. government official. Same differ- Which ones go in the cart? ence. Would it help to know that “There’s absolutely no pesti- this particular display of Golden cide risk to either apple” the Delicious apples has residues of voice reassures. three different bug killers, all of which the government is scruti- Uh huh. Make that five nizing right now, all of which pounds without the pesticides. disrupt the nervous system in the same way, and one of which The next time it might well be regulators finally banned last the Golden Delicious that are year, after decades of suspicion cleaner, or the Fujis or the Galas. and study and stalling, when they It happens all the time. You just concluded the chemical posed an don’t know—unless you happen unacceptably high risk to chil- to test your own foods on the dren? spot. For years, the government has tested, and found the same Would it help to know that the thing we found testing Washing- adjacent pile of Red Delicious has ton state apples this winter: wide no insecticides at all on it? variations in pesticide contamina- tion for most fruits and veg- Decisions, decisions. You love etables. And we’re not talking both varieties. They’re the same organic versus conventional food. price. Which do you buy? We’re talking conventional versus conventional. We are comparing No brainer. I’ll take three apples to apples. It turns out pounds without the bug killers. that some crops of apples and ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP i The government other produce simply come to apple crop. We found the bug spends millions of market much cleaner than others killer at unsafe levels in two out your tax dollars testing because they’re grown cleaner— of twenty-five bags of Washing- even if they’re not organic. ton state apples—almost exactly produce every year, the rate the government found in then sits on the results But these facts are rarely of its “most recent” tests, made for two years. any use to you as you cruise the public in 1998 from the apple produce section. The govern- crop of 1996. One bag of apples ment spends millions of your tax went over EPA’s safety limit by a dollars testing produce every factor of ten. year, then sits on the results for two years or more before making Couldn’t grocery stores help them public. The findings never you out? Sure. But most don’t get to shoppers in plain English. tell you anything at all about And if they did, the government’s pesticide levels in produce. message would be that “Every- They don’t really want to bring thing is safe.” That’s what up the subject. The unwritten they’re pressured to say by code of silence in the grocery lobbyists for pesticide companies biz says they won’t compete and agribusiness. with one another on anything but price, appearance and taste. As this report shows, the When the subject of pesticides pesticide lobby is remarkably comes up, most grocers prefer to Couldn’t grocery successful in convincing govern- say, “Everything meets federal stores help you out? ment officials to mislead consum- standards.” Sure. ers into believing the food sup- ply is perfectly safe—right up They might as well hang a until regulators ban a dangerous sign over their produce depart- pesticide. That’s what happened ments. just last August, when the highly toxic bug killer methyl parathion PesticidesOnOurFruits was abruptly yanked by federal andVegetables? officials for use on apples and other foods kids eat by the ton. Goodenoughfor This “safe” insecticide had been governmentwork! contaminating apples and other foods at “safe levels” for decades. With this report, EWG Then—poof!—it had to be launches a project to change all banned. that. It’s a food testing program, web site and newsletter system But with the pesticide lobby to give shoppers real-time infor- hammering away, the govern- mation on pesticide levels in ment dithered so long in making foods. Information you can’t get the decision last year that mil- anywhere else. We’re starting lions of consumers—and millions with a food we love (and kids of kids—ate methyl parathion all love) that happens to be one of through this winter on the 1999 the dirtier crops from a pesticide ii A FEW BAD APPLES... standpoint—apples. We focus The result? An extremely clean Gerber wouldn’t buy on apples grown in Washington product. An infant would get far most of the apples we state because they dominate the less pesticide from a jar of Gerber tested. So why should domestic and export market. apple sauce than it would from a you? The apple trade association— batch home-made from most appropriately named U.S. Apple bags of Washington state apples —has rigorously defended we tested. Why? Because as a the most dangerous pesticides at result of its grower contracts and every turn. food monitoring, Gerber wouldn’t buy most of the apples We want grocery stores to do we tested. what government is incapable of doing: test and tell consumers So why should you? which crops of food have which pesticides in them. Where is our government in all this? Snoring away at the Will grocery stores say they wheel of the strongest regulatory can’t afford it, citing their razor- vehicle they’ve ever had to get thin profit margins? Sure they dangerous pesticides out of the will, and it’s a crock. If a small food supply, particularly the nonprofit group can spend tens foods little kids eat the most: the of thousands of dollars each landmark Food Quality Protec- year on food testing, imagine tion Act of 1996. (Don’t take our what a multi-billion dollar chain word for it. See the investigative like Safeway or Kroger could expose of government pesticide accomplish. And as soon as regulation in the Oregonian last they even contemplated a test December at and tell system, the apple indus- www.oregonlive.com/news/99/ try would begin to change. So 12/st120501.html). There isn’t a would growers of other produce single consumer or environmen- crops. They’d rapidly find ways tal group in the country that to grow fruits and vegetables believes this government is going without the most dangerous to stand up for consumers and chemicals. We’d get much purer against the pesticide lobby, based produce at the same price. on performance to date. That’s what happened with But we think consumers will Gerber Baby Foods a few years stand up. ago. When EWG tested baby foods for pesticides, Gerber Turn the page or go to listened and responded to con- www.foodnews.org. We’ll show sumer concerns our testing you how. It’ll only take a provoked.