Organic foods contain much less pesticide residue than conventionally-grown foods. No surprise to most of us.

A recent study, published in the "Food Additives and Contaminants Journal," summarized the data, and was reported in the New York Times on May 8.

According to the Times article:
Edward Groth III, a senior scientist at Consumers Union and a co-author of the report, said: "There have been some very strong opinions voiced about organic produce that haven't been based on data and have confused the issue. This report shows rather convincingly and compellingly that organic foods are much less likely to have any residues; that when they have residues they have fewer and that the levels of the residues are generally lower."

The findings are based on pesticide residue data collected on a wide variety of foods by the United States Department of Agriculture from 1994 to 1999, tests conducted on food sold in California by the state's Department of Pesticide Regulation from 1989 through 1998, and tests by Consumers Union in 1997.

The combined data covered more than 94,000 food samples from more than 20 crops; 1,291 of those samples were organically grown, about 1.3 percent.

The Agriculture Department data showed that 73 percent of the conventionally grown foods had residue from at least one pesticide and were six times as likely as organic to contain multiple pesticide residues; only 23 percent of the organic samples of the same groups had any residues.

The California data found residues in 31 percent of the conventional food and 6.5 percent in the organic.

Consumer Union tests found residues on 79 percent of the conventional samples and 27 percent on the organic.

The study also looked at why organic foods contained any pesticide residues. When residues of persistent insecticides, like DDT, were excluded, the percentage of organic samples with residues dropped to 13 percent from 23.

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