Nerve gas on my peach?! No thank you! Make mine organic please!

The peach is a regular on the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen” list of fruits and vegetables that contain the highest levels of pesticide residues. Conventional peaches are regularly treated with a number of fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides, including several organophosphates,[fn value=1][/fn] a particularly toxic class of insecticides that have been found to negatively affect cognitive development in children, including doubling the risk of developing ADHD and significantly lowering IQ levels.[fn value=2][/fn]  [fn value=3][/fn]Organophosphates were developed prior to WWII to use in nerve gas, which affects the nervous system by disrupting an enzyme that regulates acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter; they were developed as insecticides because they have a similar effect on insects.[fn value=4][/fn] Other pesticides regularly used on conventional peaches include pyrethroid, glyphosate, and 2,4-D, suspected endocrine disruptors, developmental toxins, and carcinogens.[fn value=5][/fn]  [fn value=6][/fn]And because of their thin skins, washing or peeling peaches doesn’t get rid of the residues. Yuck!

Juicy tidbits

• The peach was first domesticated in China and traveled to the rest of the world via the ancient Silk Road trade route.
• In China and Japan the peach symbolizes immortality and a long life and were a favorite of emperors.
• Fossils of peach pits found in China suggest that the fruit existed in the Pliocene Epoch[fn value=10][/fn], two to five million years ago, during a time when the Mediterranean Sea was a grassland.
• How do you pick the perfectly ripe peach? The flesh should have a slight give when pressed, but don’t press too hard! Peaches easily bruise. A ripe peach also has a delicately sweet smell.
• Peaches and nectarines are the same species, even though they are commonly thought of as different fruits. Only one gene separates the two—the gene that gives peaches their characteristic fuzz, which is recessive in nectarines.