Low Carb Veggies, Fruits, and Pesticides

The Environmental Working Group released their latest “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” listing for pesticide contamination today. So how did low carb veggies and fruits do?

Avacados make a great low-pesticide choice

Non-starchy vegetables and low-glycemic fruits are the mainstay of a healthy, low carb diet. High in fiber and nutrients, and low in carbohydrates and calories, they help to keep blood glucose levels from spiking too high. However, environmental contaminants like PCBs, arsenic, dioxin, cadmium, bisphenol A, and mercury can interfere with the body’s metabolic processes.

A low carb diet is designed to lower fasting and post-meal insulin levels, allowing the body to have ready access to its fat stores. But pesticides (including herbicides and insecticides) can increase or impair insulin secretion, or damage beta cells themselves. While most organic vs. non-organic arguments stem from what feeding your family organic vegetables would cost, many scientific studies clearly show environmental toxicants are associated with an increased risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

The path to diabetes is paved with insulin resistance, fatty liver, autoimmune problems, and beta cell damage or death – so there’s much more at stake for ignoring the part pesticides play in our metabolic issues than just cost.

The Worst Low Carb Veggies and Fruits

Most low carb dieters zero in on how many carbohydrates a particular vegetable or fruit has per serving, while ignoring everything else. But if you look at the Environmental Working Group’s updated “Dirty Dozen” list published today, you’ll find many low carb diet staples are loaded with pesticides:

• celery
• strawberries
• spinach
• bell peppers
• blueberries
• lettuce
• kale and collard greens

Those strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries low carbers hold up to the world as proof that yes, we do eat fruit, could actually be doing you more harm than good. The EWG found 13 different pesticides detected on a single sample of strawberries; and raspberries were even worse – they had 51! Celery weighed in at 13 different chemicals and came in at #2 on the dirty list, bell peppers had 11, and collard greens had 10; but cucumbers, a low carb salad staple, contained as many as 68. The lettuce and spinach greens themselves? 66!!!

So what about those famous “can’t live without” Jalapeno Poppers? The Dirty Dozen only lists sweet bell peppers, not hot peppers. However, according to the EWG’s website, farmers might treat hot peppers with as many as 97 different pesticides; and if you minced them into a bowl of homemade salsa with cilantro, the cilantro adds even more.

The Best Low Carb Veggies and Fruits

Onions, corn, and asparagus had no detectable pesticide residues on 90% or more of the samples. The others on the list were very low, so if you can’t afford to go completely organic, the following listing is a great place to cut corners:

• onions
• corn
• avocado
• asparagus
• sweet peas
• eggplant
• domestic cantaloupe
• kiwi
• cabbage
• watermelon
• sweet potatoes
• grapefruit
• mushrooms

While most low carb dieters generally shun corn, peas, and sweet potatoes, starchy vegetables and tubers have their place on the Atkins Carb Ladder and make good pre-maintenance or later-on OWL additions to the diet, when you can afford to spend more carbohydrate grams. A 5- to 8-gram carb serving of melon is extremely small, so it too is best to save for later on.

Benefit of Eating Pesticide-free Vegetables and Fruits

When you eat organic produce, pesticide levels in your tissues begin to drop. That creates less stress on the body, and less risk for getting diabetes and other metabolic problems. Some pesticides are endocrine disruptors. They:

• disrupt beta cell function
• interfere with carb metabolism
• are toxic to the immune system
• impair mitochrondria function
• can cause intestinal inflammation
• impair insulin secretion
• cause pancreas to over secrete insulin
• destroy beta cells

Because of how hormones work, endocrine disruptors can have opposite effects, depending on the dose. So pesticides can be accumulative – though some studies show damage from a single exposure. While most beta cell death is actually caused from glucose toxicity (blood sugar levels higher than 140 mg/dl), pesticides' insulin secretion impairment leads to that toxicity.

While pesticides are not the only chemicals that can harm your endocrine system (meds like cortisone, prednisone, and SSRI’s also can contribute to metabolic issues and diabetes), always consider their potential for harm when choosing which low carb veggies to buy and eat.


*Photo by Eric Skiff