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The Environmental Working Group puts mushrooms on the Clean Fifteen at #14 among fruits and vegetables with the lowest pesticide residues, but this doesn\u2019t mean mushrooms don\u2019t have pesticide residues.<\/p>\n
The U.S. government\u2019s Pesticide Data Program found residues of the anti-mold pesticide thiabendazole in 54.5 percent of conventionally grown mushrooms.<\/p>\n
The EPA classifies thiabendazole as likely to be carcinogenic when doses are high enough to disrupt thyroid hormones.\u00a0According to the EPA\u2019s assessment, thiabendazole also harms the immune and nervous systems. The European Food Safety Authority determined that thiabendazole is associated with adverse effects on thyroid hormone function. If we\u2019re concerned about the health effects on farm workers and rural communities in addition to consumers, we shouldn\u2019t just be looking at pesticide residues per pound of produce, we should also be looking at pesticide usage per acre of farmland.<\/p>\n
If you look at pesticide residues per pound of produce, as the Environmental Working Group does, mushrooms make the Clean Fifteen, but if you look at pesticides per acre of farmland, as the Pesticide Action Network has done, mushrooms would be #2 on the Dirty Dozen, second only to potatoes.<\/p>\n
We need to keep in mind that the damage from conventional farming doesn\u2019t end at our plates \u2014 even produce that tests residue-free was grown with chemicals that poison our waterways, deplete our soil, and silently devastate wildlife along the way. The organic food we purchase or grow isn\u2019t just a personal health choice, it\u2019s a vote for and a contribution to a food system that doesn\u2019t gamble with humanity\u2019s most critical medicines \u2014 or the health of the planet we all share.<\/p>\n