How Do You Wash Pesticides Off Produce?

The FDA advises washing all produce thoroughly under running water before preparing or eating it, including produce grown at home or bought from a grocery store or farmers' market. It says washing fruits and vegetables with soap, detergent or commercial produce wash is not recommended, because produce is porous and can absorb soap and detergents despite thorough rinsing, and because the safety of commercial produce wash residues is not known and their effectiveness has not been tested.

The FDA frames that advice around dirt and bacteria. It says washing can reduce but not eliminate bacteria, to wash produce even if you do not plan to eat the skin, to scrub firm produce such as melons and cucumbers with a clean produce brush, and to dry produce with a clean cloth towel or paper towel. On pesticides, the EPA says very small amounts that may remain on fruits, vegetables, grains and other foods decrease considerably as crops are harvested, transported, exposed to light, washed, prepared and cooked, and that a detectable residue does not mean the residue is at an unsafe level.

Residues are regulated and tested. The EPA says that before allowing a pesticide on food crops, it sets a maximum legal residue limit, called a tolerance, for each treated food, the level that triggers enforcement action. USDA says its Pesticide Data Program tested 9,872 samples from 19 commodities of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, nuts and fish in 2024, and that more than 99 percent of commodities sampled had residues below EPA tolerances, with 42.3 percent having no detectable residue.