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• The Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) 2025 Dirty Dozen list includes two new entries — blackberries and potatoes — both flagged for high pesticide levels and exposure to banned or hormone-disrupting chemicals
• Nearly 75% of conventionally grown produce tested by the USDA had pesticide residues, and 96% of the foods on the Dirty Dozen list carried multiple toxic chemical residues even after washing
• For the first time, the EWG ranked produce not just by residue quantity, but by how toxic the detected pesticides are when combined and consumed, offering a far more accurate exposure risk
• Pesticide regulation still evaluates chemicals one at a time, ignoring how daily exposure to multiple residues amplifies harmful effects on your nervous system, hormones, and DNA
• Children, infants, and unborn babies face the highest risks from contaminated produce due to their size, developmental stage, and inability to effectively detox pesticide chemicals

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has recently released the 2025 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™, which analyzes popular fruit and vegetables and ranks them according to their pesticide contamination and toxicity. This year’s list has a couple of notable newcomers, pushing the conversation about produce safety even further.

The report found that these aren't just minor traces of pesticides — some of the chemicals detected have been banned in other countries due to safety concerns. With many of these foods always on your grocery list, chances are you’re unknowingly ingesting these toxic chemicals every day. And if you’re feeding them to your children, the stakes are even higher.

EWG’s Annual Report Highlights High Pesticide Residues in Conventional Produce

Published since 2004, the EWG’s annual guide is designed to help consumers make informed choices when shopping for produce.1 It includes both the infamous Dirty Dozen list and the safer Clean Fifteen list.

“Shoppers who want to reduce their exposure to pesticides can consider purchasing organic versions of produce on the Dirty Dozen, when possible. It doesn’t have to be in the fresh produce part of a store. Frozen options are often available and more affordable,” the EWG says.2

This year, the organization investigated 47 fruits and vegetables and incorporated data from more than 53,000 samples. These samples were collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) through its Pesticide Data Program.

• Nearly 75% of all conventional produce carried pesticide residues — The team found that the residues remained even after washing the produce. Worse, 96% of Dirty Dozen items had multiple pesticide residues, with some individual samples testing positive for over 50 different chemicals.

• Overall, the team found a total of 203 pesticides on the Dirty Dozen produce — Most were standard insecticides and fungicides used in U.S. agriculture. In a CNN report, Alex Temkin, EWG’s vice president of science, said:

“The guide is there to help consumers eat a lot of fruits and vegetables while trying to reduce pesticide exposure. One of the things that a lot of peer-reviewed studies have shown over and over again (is) that when people switch to an organic diet from a conventional diet, you can really see measurable levels in the reduction of pesticide levels in the urine.”3

• A major change was introduced this year — This was the inclusion of pesticide toxicity in their ranking system. This means the team didn’t just look at how many residues were found, but how dangerous those specific pesticides combinations are to your health when consumed together.

“We still have measurements of the detection frequency of pesticides, how many different pesticides are found on produce, as well as the overall concentration. We also have an indicator of that concentration relative to a dose that might cause harm in an animal study,” Temkin said.

“A lot of the Dirty Dozen produce rank really highly when you look at pesticide toxicity, especially relative to the ‘Clean Fifteen’ items, which have fewer detections of pesticide residues.”

So Which Fruits and Vegetables Made the List?

At the top of the Dirty Dozen list is spinach. It was found to have more pesticide residue by weight compared to other fruits and vegetables tested. To get the data on spinach, the researchers used 1,295 samples from the USDA collected between 2015 and 2016 — the most recent data available for this type of produce.4 Here’s the full list:

1. Spinach
2. Strawberries
3. Kale, collard, and mustard greens
4. Grapes
5. Peaches
6. Cherries

1. Nectarines
2. Pears
3. Apples
4. Blackberries
5. Blueberries
6. Potatoes

• There were two newcomers to the list — Blackberries were a new addition, as they were never tested before by the USDA. Meanwhile, potatoes were included in the list after being absent in recent years. This was mainly due to the use of chlorpropham, a plant growth regulator used for this crop. Chlorpropham has been banned in the European Union, according to CNN.5

• EWG listed a few more crops — Called “Plus” (+) items, these were the foods that didn’t quite make the top 12, but were right behind them, just two spots below the 12th place item. This means that even if they’re not technically on the Dirty Dozen, they still had high enough levels of pesticide toxicity that EWG felt they were important to flag. The Plus items include:

+ Bell and hot peppers
+ Green beans

• On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Clean Fifteen list — According to the EWG, almost 60% of the fruit and vegetable samples in this list had no detectable pesticide residues, and only 16% had residues of two or more pesticides. In addition, those in the Top 6 did not have residues of more than three pesticides. Here’s the Clean Fifteen list:

1. Pineapple
2. Sweet corn (fresh and frozen)
3. Avocados
4. Papaya
5. Onions
6. Sweet peas (frozen)
7. Asparagus
8. Cabbage

1. Watermelon
2. Cauliflower
3. Bananas
4. Mangoes
5. Carrots
6. Mushrooms
7. Kiwi

Pesticide Combinations Are Quietly Stacking the Odds Against Your Health

Millions of people eat conventionally grown produce every day assuming they’ve been checked and cleared for safety. However, most of the pesticides found on these foods are not regularly monitored. That means there’s little to no tracking of how much pesticide actually ends up in your bloodstream.

• Pesticides contaminate produce either during the growing process or after the produce is harvested — Either way, these residues make it into your pantry every time you purchase these conventionally grown fruits and vegetables.

• These toxic chemicals damage your body in more ways than one — For example, fungicides like pyrimethanil and fludioxonil were both flagged in this year’s analysis and have been tied to hormone disruption, affecting everything from mood and metabolism to fertility. Pyrethroids like permethrin and cypermethrin have been linked in recent human studies to nervous system damage, especially in children whose nervous systems are still developing.6

• Neonicotinoids, like acetamiprid and imidacloprid, are another damaging chemical found in the study — Originally introduced to replace the more dangerous class of organophosphates, neonicotinoids not only disrupt your nervous and reproductive systems, but they also harm the environment, posing great risks to pollinators, birds, and aquatic ecosystems.

• Even more alarming are the banned chemicals still found in conventional produce — For example, acephate, an organophosphate banned in 2011, was found in green beans, one of the Dirty Dozen “Plus” items.

• The biggest oversight of all is how pesticide safety is evaluated — When a pesticide undergoes testing, it is assessed individually. But, as these findings show, a mix of pesticides residues are found in each type of produce — this means that you could be ingesting dozens of different residues in a single day. And when those substances interact in your body, they may amplify each other’s damaging effects on your hormones, cells, or DNA.

• Worse yet, regulatory standards have consistently underestimated how much is too much — The threshold for what’s considered “safe” has repeatedly been revised — always downward — once real-world data finally comes in.

For instance, in 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) canceled the use of the herbicide DCPA (sold as Dacthal) after receiving data it had asked for a decade earlier. That data showed that even low levels of DCPA exposure altered thyroid hormone levels in developing fetuses.

• The regulatory system is reactive, not protective — It often takes years — and human harm — for standards to catch up with the science. In the meantime, you’re on your own to decide how much exposure is acceptable for you and your family.

• Children, infants, and unborn fetuses are especially vulnerable to pesticides — This is because of their small body, rapid development, and immature detoxification systems. Even trace amounts of certain pesticides cause damage that affects cognition, behavior, and even genetic integrity. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics:

“Pesticide exposure during pregnancy may lead to an increased risk of birth defects, low birth weight, and fetal death. Exposure in childhood has been linked to attention and learning problems, as well as cancer.”7

How Does the EWG Rank Fruits and Vegetables?

Understanding how the EWG creates the Shopper’s Guide provides you a clearer view of why some fruits and vegetables landed on the Dirty Dozen — and why others didn’t.

• Data collection — Every year, the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program collects tens of thousands of samples from different crops and tests them for residue levels of hundreds of pesticides. However, they don’t test every fruit or vegetable every year; Instead, they rotate the testing.8

For example, in 2023 they collected data on apples, avocados, blackberries, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and a handful of others. So when the 2025 EWG report uses that data, it’s looking back at samples collected two years prior.

• All samples are prepared properly before being tested — The USDA washes and prepares each sample just how you would do it at home. For example, apples are rinsed under running cold water for 15 to 20 seconds. Bananas are peeled. Produce with inedible ends are trimmed.

Afterwards, several pounds of the sample produce are blended — this is what they test. Hence, the results are far more reflective of your real exposure. It’s not just what’s on your skin, but what actually ends up in your body.

• The EWG follows four unique scoring factors — Once the raw data is collected, the research team uses these criteria to identify which fruits and vegetables are high risk:

1. The percent of samples with at least one detected pesticide

2. The average number of different pesticides per sample

3. The average concentration of pesticides per sample

4. The overall toxicity of those pesticides

• To make those numbers comparable, they standardized the values on a scale of 1 to 100 — So if strawberries had the highest concentration of pesticide in any category, that value became a “100” in that metric. Then, for each fruit or vegetable, they added up the scores from all four categories to get a total out of 400. The higher the score, the more contaminated and harmful that produce is likely to be.

• To measure toxicity, they use the pesticide-toxicity ratio — First, they total up the concentration of each parent pesticide and its byproducts (called metabolites or degradates) in all the samples of a specific produce. “These values are reported in parts per million or milligrams of a parent pesticide per kilogram of fruit or vegetable,” the EWG explains.

Then, they divide that total concentration by the No-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level (NOAEL). This is the highest dose of a pesticide that didn’t cause harm in animal studies. The smaller the NOAEL, the more dangerous the pesticide. So if the amount on your food is even close to that number, the risk is real.

By combining the total number, amount, diversity, and toxicity of pesticides into one final score, the EWG provides what regulators don’t — a realistic view of your daily exposure. This helps you make smarter shopping choices that lower your toxic burden and protect your family from long-term harm.

How to Reduce Your Pesticide Exposure and Protect Your Family’s Health

If you’re eating fresh fruits and vegetables regularly — especially from conventional sources — you’re likely being exposed to dozens of pesticide residues each day. However, avoiding produce completely is not the answer. Rather, you need to make smarter, more informed decisions to lower your toxic burden. Here are strategies to help you get started:

1. Prioritize buying organic for the Dirty Dozen and the “Plus” items — The easiest way to cut down your pesticide load is to avoid conventional versions of the most contaminated foods. I recommend choosing organic options for these specific items. If you’re on a tight budget, frozen organic versions are often cheaper and just as effective.

2. Use the Clean Fifteen to stretch your budget — If going 100% organic doesn’t work for you financially — and for most people, it doesn’t — use the Clean Fifteen list to know where it’s safe to go conventional. These items had either no pesticide residues or only a few mild ones. This balance helps you lower your toxic exposure without stressing out or breaking the bank.

3. Prep your produce like it actually matters — A quick rinse isn’t enough. If you’re eating conventional produce, wash it thoroughly under cold running water for at least 20 seconds. Use a soft brush on items like potatoes, carrots, and apples. Peel fruits with thick skins like mangoes and cucumbers. For leafy greens, remove the outermost leaves and rinse each one gently in a colander. These steps don’t eliminate all pesticides, but they help.

4. Teach your kids (and yourself) to spot safe choices — If you’ve got kids, turn shopping into a game. Give them a challenge: “Find three foods from the Clean Fifteen today.” If you're someone who shops on autopilot, keep a printed copy of the Clean Fifteen and Dirty Dozen lists on your fridge or phone. These visual cues train your brain to spot safe picks and make informed decisions without having to think too hard each time.

In addition, consider shopping at local farmers markets instead of large grocery chains, and connect with farmers that use regenerative methods to grow their food.

Where to Find High-Quality, Organic Produce

If you live in a dense, urban location in the U.S. that doesn't have any local farmers markets, don't worry. There are plenty of ways to connect with reputable organic farmers that employ regenerative agricultural practices so you can still purchase their products. Below is a list of websites I recommend:

• American Grassfed Association — The goal of the American Grassfed Association (AGA) is to promote the grass fed industry through government relations, research, concept marketing and public education.

Their website also allows you to search for AGA-approved producers certified according to strict standards that include being raised on a diet of 100% forage; raised on pasture and never confined to a feedlot; never treated with antibiotics or hormones; born and raised on American family farms.

• EatWild.com — EatWild.com provides lists of farmers known to produce raw dairy products as well as grass fed beef and other farm-fresh produce (although not all are certified organic). Here you can also find information about local farmers markets, as well as local stores and restaurants that sell grass fed products.

• Weston A. Price Foundation — Weston A. Price has local chapters in most states, and many of them are connected with buying clubs in which you can easily purchase organic foods, including grass fed raw dairy products like milk and butter.

• Grassfed Exchange — The Grassfed Exchange has a listing of producers selling organic and grass fed meats across the U.S.

• Local Harvest — This website will help you find farmers markets, family farms and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass fed meats and many other goodies.

• Farmers Markets — A national listing of farmers markets.

• Eat Well Guide — Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals — The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, hotels and online outlets in the U.S and Canada.

• Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) — CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms.

• The Cornucopia Institute — The Cornucopia Institute maintains web-based tools rating all certified organic brands of eggs, dairy products and other commodities, based on their ethical sourcing and authentic farming practices separating CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) "organic" production from authentic organic practices.

• RealMilk.com — If you're still unsure of where to find raw milk, check out Raw-Milk-Facts.com and RealMilk.com. They can tell you what the status is for legality in your state, and provide a listing of raw dairy farms in your area. The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund also provides a state-by-state review of raw milk laws.9 California residents can also find raw milk retailers using the store locator available at RAW FARM.10

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the EWG’s Dirty Dozen List

Q: What is the Dirty Dozen list, and why does it matter?

A: The Dirty Dozen is a list of 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest levels of pesticide residues, published annually by the Environmental Working Group. These items often contain multiple chemical residues — even after washing — and are linked to hormone disruption, neurological harm, and developmental issues, especially in children.

Q: How does the EWG determine which produce belongs on the Dirty Dozen?

A: EWG analyzes USDA data on pesticide residues and uses four scoring factors: how many samples tested positive, how many types of pesticides were found, the total concentration, and the toxicity of the pesticides. These are combined into one score to rank produce from most to least contaminated.

Q: What are the worst fruits and vegetables to buy conventionally this year?

A: Spinach, strawberries, kale, grapes, and apples ranked among the most contaminated. New to the list in 2025 are blackberries and potatoes — both flagged for dangerous pesticide residues, including chlorpropham and neonicotinoids, which are linked to hormone and nervous system damage.

Q: Are there safer options if I can’t afford to buy everything organic?

A: Yes. The Clean Fifteen list includes produce with the lowest pesticide levels, such as avocados, pineapples, onions, bananas, and sweet corn. Buying these items conventionally lets you focus your organic budget on high-risk foods like those on the Dirty Dozen list.

Q: How can I reduce my pesticide exposure starting today?

A: Prioritize organic for Dirty Dozen items, rinse produce thoroughly, peel when possible, shop at farmers markets, and use tools like the EWG guide to make smart swaps. Even small changes — like switching to frozen organic berries — can cut your exposure dramatically.

Sources and References

• 1, 3, 5, 7 CNN Health, June 11, 2025
• 2, 6 EWG, EWG’s 2025 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™
• 4, 8 EWG, Methodology
• 9 The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, State by State Review of Raw Milk Laws
• 10 Raw Farm, Find Raw Dairy Products Near You