Old Fashioned Baking Soda Found To Be The Most Effective At Removing Pesticide Residue

I don’t know about you, but I tend to be a little lazy when it comes to cleaning my fruits and vegetables. I just do a quick rinse under the tap and then wipe them off with a paper towel. Part of this laziness is because I tend to buy organic whenever I can. However, it’s not just pesticides you have to worry about. There can be all kinds of bacteria and germs on fruits and vegetables so cleaning them should be a step you don’t miss, especially if you’re eating them raw. Luckily, there’s an easy way to remove pesticide residue from your fresh produce: Good old-fashioned baking soda. (1)

Study Explores Removing Pesticides

According to the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, this simple pantry staple does a particularly good job at removing pesticides from your fruit and veggies. The team at the University of Massachusetts used gala apples as their test fruit with impressive results. (1)

The researchers applied thiabendazole and phosmet to organic apples for their study. They chose thiabendazole because it is known to penetrate apple skin. The phosmet is commonly used, so it made a logical second choice. (1)

Three Ways For Removing Pesticides

The fruit underwent a series of washing methods including (1):

Tap water
A one percent baking soda/water solution
A commercial bleach solution approved by the United States Environmental Protection Agency

Surprisingly, the bleach solution is a common product used to rinse fresh produce. Seems counter-intuitive to me.

Best Way For Removing Pesticides

The tap water and bleach product did little to remove the pesticides. This wasn’t a quick rinse either. They washed the apples for a good two minutes. The baking soda, on the other hand, made short work of the pesticide residue. In fact, it actually got rid of the toxin chemicals almost completely. Impressive! (1)

The study showed 80 percent of the thiabendazole was removed from the apples after 12 and 15-minute washes. It was even more effective in removing the phosmet, at 96 percent after washing for the same amount of time. (1)

Researchers accounted for the difference between the two pesticides because the thiabendazole tends to be absorbed by the apple up to 80 micrometers deep. Phosmet on the other hand only penetrates about 20 micrometers. (1)

DIYers Methods For Removing Pesticides

This news comes as no surprise to many DIYers who have used baking soda for years. Common mixes of baking soda with water, vinegar, or lemon juice are often touted online as the best way to clean toxins from fresh produce. Placing the solution in a spray bottle makes it easy to apply the cleanser and then rinse it off before consuming. (2)