John Myers
Scrubbing, washing – none of this helps. We cannot get pesticide residues out of sprayed apples.
You don’t have to wash because of the pesticides
Because of the pesticides, the apple does not necessarily have to be washed. Especially since, according to Dirk Blankenburg from Erfurt University of Applied Sciences, apples are usually sorted while they are floating – and have therefore already been washed once.
Of course, this does not remove the pesticide residues in the apple. You can scrub as much as you want.
But we can reassure you: at least apples are among the foods for which the maximum residue level is only very rarely exceeded. During the last test in 2016, a total of 688 apple samples were examined. The maximum residue level was only exceeded in five samples, in 179 no residues were found. Other foods were much more problematic, such as watercress, guava or passion fruit.
If you want to be on the safe side when it comes to pesticides, you can use organic fruit. In organic farming, only resources of natural origin are used that remain on the skin, such as copper. But that’s not perfect either, because the copper is washed off by the rain and gets into the ground. The soils in organic fruit plantations are therefore often contaminated with heavy metals.
But you should still wash it
Whether organic or not – washing can still make sense. Because even if the pesticides are only a small problem, germs can accumulate on the apple on the way from the farmer to the seller or in the supermarket display. In addition, dust trickles down on the fruit, which can be contaminated. And last but not least, there are sometimes still small residues of pesticides, which are not dangerous, but not particularly appetizing either.
However, these residues can often be further reduced by washing and peeling. The rule is: washing before peeling, otherwise valuable ingredients are often lost. Rinsing with cold water is enough. Detergent, warm water or special cleaning agents have no particular effect.
