Every spring, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases its “Dirty Dozen Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce.” It is received with much fanfare and is ripe for the picking for media outlets across the country. To get an idea how much buzz it generates, I Googled “dirty dozen food.” It yielded about 30 million results. I filtered those results to news stories and about 30,000 featured the subject.
Advertisement
It is easy clickbait for the media, so it’s no big surprise the dirty dozen gets so much play. But, with Americans not eating enough fruits and vegetables to begin with, it is too bad the message to avoid them garners the attention it does.