Is it safe to eat fruit with the skin having cleaned it only with water?

Question

For fruits such as peaches and apples, which one might eat with skin, some people argue that water do not wash away some chemicals (i.e. pesticides) that get absorbed by the skin, thus advising to always peel them before eating them.

However, considering that the the skin is rich in nutrients, is it unsafe to just wash the fruit with water (and rubbing it with one's hands) rather than peeling them?

When something is absorbed by the skin, there is nothing you can do to clean it from the outside - you have to get rid of the skin. If you want the surface of the fruit to be clean, water alone will not do the trick for the same reason your hands will not be clean from all sorts of hydrophobic dirt if you wash them with water alone. So washing with soapy water should remove most hydrophilic and hydrophobic dirt, which puts you in a better position than when washing with water alone. — Don_S, Jul 11 '18 at 07:32
There are other practices, such as using vinegar, baking soda and other household chemicals for cleaning fruit and vegetables. I'm not sure there's a definite advantage to these practices. Worth researching new studies in that field. — Don_S, Jul 11 '18 at 07:33

score -1 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 08 '18 at 15:14

Your question is hard to give a proper answer.

I think a big (but not complete) answer is already here: How much pesticide remains on a harvested organic fruit?

Anyway, (thanks to) my approach as engineer I can produce another kind, a different answer: a schematic list of statement that you can use to infer an answer by your own:

(Legal) chemicals used in agriculture are safe^a to human.
Organic fruit will certainly have less chemicals than normal fruit^b, so if you worry about chemicals, you should prefer organic fruit and vegetables.
There are different chemicals and each one interact differently with the fruit.
1. There will be hydrophile („liking water“) molecules and washing your fruit, they will go away.
2. There will be lipophile („liking fat“) molecules and washing your fruit, they will remain on the fruit, on the peel; an interesting solution is here^d.
Part of chemicals stay on the peel, part of chemical are adsorbed inside the fruit, in the flesh^c: if you remove physically the peel you will physically remove chemicals in it.

As you see issue is really complex!

^a If chemicals used are legal, they have been tested on human.
^b https://consumersunion.org/news/cu-research-team-shows-organic-foods-really-do-have-less-pesticides/
^c https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/well/eat/do-pesticides-get-into-the-flesh-of-fruits-and-vegetables.html
^d https://www.popsci.com/how-to-actually-remove-pesticides-from-your-fruit

"If chemicals used are legal, they have been tested on humans" can you provide evidence to back this up? What about the idea that untested chemicals can be used as they are not proved unsafe? — Chris Rogers, Jul 10 '18 at 06:07
This is an assumption: every chemicals (pesticides included) need to fit laws if producers want to sold them. e.g. "...The EPA regulates pesticides to ensure that these products do not pose adverse effects to humans or the environment. ..." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticide_regulation_in_the_United_States] — mattia.b89, Jul 11 '18 at 16:13
The assumption is slightly wrong in my view. Just because a pesticide is legal, doesn't mean it is free from harming humans. DDT and Paraquat were legal until proven unsafe and only then were they banned. — Chris Rogers, Jul 13 '18 at 08:11

Is it safe to eat fruit with the skin having cleaned it only with water?

1 Answers1