EWG’s Dirty Dozen & Clean Fifteen

Every year, the Environmental Working Group puts out a list of the fruits and vegetables that have the most pesticide residues, and a list with the least amount of pesticides. These lists can be helpful in making decisions as to which vegetables you must buy organic, and which ones are not as important.

Of course purchasing everything organic is ideal, both for your own health and the environment, but sometimes other constraints makes it impossible. The Clean Fifteen and the Dirty Dozen lists can be guides to help you.

This year, Strawberries, which had been in the number 1 spot on the Dirty Dozen List for years, was replaced by Spinach! They found that spinach had more pesticide residues by weight than any other type of produce. 75% of the samples they tested had the chemical Permethrin, which is a neurotoxic insecticide that is banned in Europe. Potatoes, which are the most consumed vegetable in America, tested positive for Chlorpropham, a chemical that they put on the potatoes after harvesting to prevent them from sprouting. Chlorpropham is also banned in the European Union.

The European Union  has always puts the health of their people in front of the profit for corporations. They require corporations to prove the safety of a chemical before it is added to a food, where as the United States allows the chemicals to be added first, and then the people have to fight to get it removed. We have it backwards, and it’s only getting worse!!

The Selling of Public Land was Removed from the Big Beautiful Bill

Republican Senator of Utah, Mike Lee, was the man responsible for proposing the additional plan to sell off millions of acres of public lands. The plan would supposedly solve an issue regarding a lack of affordable housing in those areas by selling the land off to developers who could build new homes there.

Senator Lee faced some pushback from within his own party, and several senators from Montana and Idaho expressed their concerns about the plan. Opposition discussions included the fear of the sale of lands to non-American entities, and most notably the interference in typical hunting and fishing practices of citizens in those states.

For now, the selling off of public lands has been stricken from the package. Let’s hope it doesn’t reappear in any future bills.

Read more about this issue in this New York Times article.