We talk a lot about nutrition here at Rehme Dental Care. That’s because what you eat — and what you don’t — plays such a big role in tooth/body, mouth/body health. It’s the foundation.
Dentally, a steady supply of sugars and other refined carbs helps create conditions that favor tooth decay and gum disease. Minimally processed, nutrient-dense foods, on the other hand, deliver the raw materials your body needs to maintain health in the mouth and beyond.
The quality of those foods matters, too.
When it comes to veg and fruit, organic is ideal whenever possible. That can get spendy, though, especially when you’re feeding a family. If your budget is limited, guides like EWG’s annual Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen can help you prioritize which produce to buy organic — namely, fruit and veg that tend to carry the most pesticide residueso when grown conventionally.
Even then, there’s still the question of what you can do about any residues that remain — even on organic produce. Really. Pesticides can drift from nearby farms, persist in soil from earlier use, or find their way onto food at other points along the supply chain. A 2025 study of crops from 10 European countries, for instance, found pesticide residues in 40% of samples from organic farms. Almost 14% carried multiple residues.
Over the years, there’s been no shortage of advice about how to remove those residues. You’ve probably encountered some yourself — special produce washes and homemade rinses and soaks using vinegar, baking soda, or even diluted bleach. Some instructions are remarkably specific about ingredients, concentrations, and soaking times.
Earlier this year, a review of studies on “household produce washing methods” came out in Frontiers in Environmental Health. Nearly 50 peer-reviewed studies were included, involving 23 kinds of produce and 79 pesticides or pesticide metabolites. That added up to 1100 individual data points altogether on four common approaches: rinsing under tap water, soaking in plain water, soaking in a baking soda solution, and soaking in vinegar or acetic acid.
The research team crunched the numbers to determine the median residue reduction for each washing method. This is different from the “average” reduction. The median is the point where half the results showed a greater reduction and half showed a smaller one.
Here are the median reductions found in this study:
- 30.2% for rinsing with plain water.
- 33.7% for soaking in plain water.
- 50.9% for soaking in a baking soda solution.
- 54.2% for soaking in a vinegar or acetic acid solution.
This doesn’t mean that soaking an apple for an hour in a vinegar solution will remove a little more than half of its pesticide residues. In fact, individual results varied a lot. The amount removed depended on things like the particular pesticide, the type of produce, the concentration of the washing solution, and how long the food was washed or soaked.
You also need to consider that some pesticides mostly stay on the surface of a plant, while others are absorbed into the plant itself — much as tea plants can take up fluoride from the soil in which they grow. Those can’t be washed away. Residues may also become incorporated into natural or added waxes on produce while soft, thin-skinned fruits such as berries can absorb some pesticides into their flesh.
Yet even with these limitations, the findings make one thing quite clear: Any reduction means less pesticide residue going into your body.
The simplest option costs nothing extra: Give your produce a good rinse under running water. Again, across the studies included in the review, that alone produced a median reduction of about 30%.
If you’d like to do more, baking soda is another easy option. One commonly recommended mixture is 1 teaspoon of baking soda in 2 cups of water. For most produce, soak for about 5 to 10 minutes, then rinse well with fresh water.
Delicate berries need a lighter touch, though. Harvard environmental health researcher Peng Gao recommends only a 30- to 60-second dip for strawberries and blackberries, and one to two minutes for blueberries.
Diluted white vinegar is another possibility. A mixture of 1 part vinegar to 3 or 4 parts water can be used as a soak, followed by a thorough rinse. It may affect the taste of some foods, though, so baking soda may be the more appealing choice.
The main thing is to simply do what you can, as you can, the best you can. While you may not be able to get rid of every bit of pesticide residue, what you do remove is still pesticide you’re not eating.
