Peel cucumbers to avoid cancer-causing pesticides, scientists say – but do we really need to?

Washing fruit and veg before eating them is common practice in most British households. 

But new research suggests that this might not be enough to eliminate potentially harmful pesticides from your produce. 

Experts at Anhui Agricultural University in China used a highly sensitive film to pick up traces of chemicals that other tests fail to spot.

Tests with apples and cucumbers, as well as other foods like shrimp and rice, found that washing foods did not eliminate traces of pesticides that have been linked to liver cancer.

The scientists say their findings offer evidence that washing fruit and veg is insufficient, and suggest peeling foods like apples and cucumbers instead.

Writing in the journal Nano Letters, they concluded: ‘The risk of pesticide ingestion from fruits cannot be avoided by simple washing other than peeling.

‘We believe that the peeling operation can effectively avoid the hazards of pesticides in the fruit’s epidermis [skin] and near-epidermal pulp, thereby reducing the probability of ingesting pesticides.’ 

But is peeling our fruit and veg really crucial for protecting our long-term health? 

For the new study, the researchers sprayed the fruit they tested with pesticides thiram and carbendazim.

Experts from Anhui Agricultural University in the city of Hefei originally conducted experiments on apples and dried fruit before replicating it in cucumbers, shrimp, chili powder and rice

They then washed them to mimic the everyday practices of millions of families who buy such items every day.  

However, using their special film, they demonstrated that washing wasn’t enough to remove the presence of these pesticides could still be detected at ‘low concentrations’.

They then replicated the study on other foods including cucumbers, shrimp, chili powder and rice which produced similar results showing these also had pesticide contamination. 

Carbendazim has been shown, in some animal studies, to increase the risk of liver cancers developing. Thiram has also been linked to developmental problems in  unborn children, and is irritating to the skin, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. 
    

High exposure to carbendazim is linked to headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting as well as movement issues.

However, neither thiram nor carbendazim are approved for use in the UK.

While food imported into the UK can be grown using them and sold on supermarket shelves, traces of the chemicals are too low to ilicit any of the ill-effects found in studies.

Separate studies, on pesticides in general have linked pesticides exposure to increased risk of cancers in people.

One recent study even claimed pesticides had a greater impact on cancers like Hopkins lymphoma, leukaemia, and bladder cancer than smoking.

However, experts say the health benefits of eating fruit and vegetables hugely outweigh the risks posed from consuming food with negligible amounts of pesticides.