Grapes and grapefruit have topped the Pesticide Action Network’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of fruit and vegetables containing potentially harmful pesticides.
Analysis of UK government testing data launched last week revealed a quarter of vegetables and three-quarters of fruit contain multiple pesticides.
The data showed 123 different chemicals on the 17 types of fruit and vegetable tested, including 42 pesticides with links to cancer and 21 known to interfere with hormones.
Over 90% of samples of grapefruit and grapes tested by the government contained multiple pesticide residues.
Although more grapefruits contained multiple pesticide residues (99%), grapes were one of the worst offenders with one single sample containing residues of 16 different pesticides.
“Safety limits are set for one pesticide at a time, completely ignoring the fact that it’s all too common for food to contain multiple chemicals,” said Nick Mole, who conducted the analysis for PAN UK. “The truth is we know very little about how these chemicals interact with each other, or what this exposure to hundreds of different pesticides is doing to our health in the long-term.”
He added that pesticides are known to become more toxic when combined and has called for the government to do “everything it can to get pesticides out of our food”.
The analysis also found 29% of the pesticides detected in government testing were not approved for use by British farmers, often because of the harms they cause to health or environment.
PAN UK said the government has repeatedly highlighted how this arrangement disadvantages British farmers.
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