What’s changed in the 2025 Dirty Dozen list?

There’s a change in this year’s “Dirty Dozen” list of fruits and vegetables containing the highest levels of pesticide residues.

The annual list released by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG) was often criticized for compiling raw numbers of pesticides rather than considering which pesticides were most harmful. (Same for the accompanying “Clean 15” list of produce with the lowest pesticide levels.)

This year, EWG adjusted its methods to consider the toxicity of the substances. Under this methodology, blackberries and potatoes joined the 2025 Dirty Dozen list, while cauliflower and bananas were new additions to the Clean 15. Additionally, the toxicity ranking meant EWG added two “+” items to the Dirty Dozen list – bell/hot peppers and green beans. The extras were added because their overall toxicity ranking was just as high as crops that made the standard list.

Ranking the Dirty Dozen

When compiling the list, EWG now considers four factors: The percentage of samples with at least one pesticide detected, the average number of different pesticides detected on a single sample, the average total concentration of pesticides found on a single sample, and the overall toxicity of pesticides on a crop. Its full methodology is online here.

While the change addresses a common complaint about the annual list, assessing the “Dirty Dozen” is still a complicated issue.

Blackberries joined the list in 10^th place, for instance, not because they contained more pesticide residues than before, but because this was the first time U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data was available for the fruit. (Of the conventional blackberries sampled, 93% had detectable pesticides, with an average per sample of four fungicides and/or insecticides, according to USDA.)

New data was also available for potatoes, in 12^th place. Nearly 90 percent of conventional potatoes tested contained chlorpropham, which is applied after harvest to prevent sprouting, according to EWG.

“The European Union ended its approval of chlorpropham in 2019, following a 2017 assessment that found risks to consumers and workers from its use and presence on food, primarily potatoes,” the report said.

Overall, more than 95 percent of all the conventionally grown samples of produce on the Dirty Dozen contained pesticides. Before testing the produce, USDA prepares it as it would be used at home – washing it under running water, peeling items with inedible peels, trimming inedible ends.

And yet, figuratively speaking, the EWG report still isn’t comparing apples to apples. It can only assess the data that USDA collected, and USDA doesn’t test the same fruits and vegetables every year. For instance, EWG’s assessment of spinach is from 2015 and 2016 – the most recent year USDA tested spinach – but its data on apples comes from 2023.

Why the Dirty Dozen list is useful

Many objections to the Dirty Dozen list focus on worries that it will scare people away from eating enough fruits and vegetables. They note that the most recent USDA report on pesticide data  says that 99% of the time that pesticide residues are found on foods, it is below the maximum level allowed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

That’s not wholly comforting to everyone.

As EWG notes, levels of some pesticides that were once considered safe have been found unsafe after more and longer-term data became available. Children can be more vulnerable to the effects of pesticides than adults. And government regulators consider each pesticide individually, rather than considering their combined effect or how they might interact. (For those who want to consider that question, not much hard data even exists to help with answers.)

In any event, EWG says its report is meant to help people make informed choices – to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables while also considering how to reduce their pesticides exposure.

The organization suggests people use the lists as a tool. That might mean preferentially choosing fruits and vegetables on the Clean 15 list where they can or prioritizing organic versions of Dirty Dozen produce if they are available and affordable. At the very least, they’ll be aware of the issues.