When Buying Organic Matters and Why Eating Produce Still Comes First
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In this clip from Dr. Rhonda Patrick’s appearance on The Knowledge Project, she explains why pesticide concern varies by produce type. She points to paraquat and rotenone as compounds used to create Parkinson-like mitochondrial and neuronal injury in laboratory models, then distinguishes that hazard discussion from the practical question of choosing food at the store.
Dr. Patrick uses skin thickness as a simple buying framework: thin-skinned produce such as strawberries and apples receives more priority for organic purchasing than avocados, bananas, or oranges with peels that are removed. She washes produce with water and presents skin thickness as her personal rule of thumb.
Her larger point is that fear of pesticides should not displace nutrient-rich foods. Folate from leafy greens is required for normal DNA synthesis; experimental folate depletion increased uracil misincorporation and chromosome breaks, which were reversed with folate repletion. This supports the importance of adequate folate, but it does not establish that folate deficiency and ionizing radiation create identical human health risks. [1]
This clip is excerpted, with permission, from Dr. Rhonda Patrick's appearance on The Knowledge Project. Thank you to The Knowledge Project for allowing us to share it.
- ^ Blount, Benjamin C.; Mack, Matthew M.; Wehr, Carol M.; MacGregor, James T.; Hiatt, Robert A.; Wang, Gene, et al. (1997). Folate Deficiency Causes Uracil Misincorporation Into Human DNA And Chromosome Breakage: Implications For Cancer And Neuronal Damage Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences 94, 7.
Shane Parrish: You mentioned organic. Is there a difference between organic and inorganic, I guess, but inorganic in the sense of being non-organic produce, like for eating leafy greens? Why would we choose one over another, and what difference does it make from a composition or bioavailability point of view?
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I think the— so pesticides are obviously something that are used now in agriculture because we're, you know, these farms are huge and we're growing mass quantities of foods. And so they're spraying things that'll ward off insects. So insecticides or pesticides, as they're known, and also fungicides and other things to prevent fungus and anything that's going to destroy the crop, right? And, you know, a lot of these types of pesticides are, I would say, they're obviously damaging to the insects. But to humans, the question is, well, are they damaging to humans? And, you know, there were a lot, especially things like rotenone, paraquat, these were used for a long time. And those are chemicals that actually cause— we use them, scientists use them, I've used it myself in the lab to induce Parkinson-like symptoms in animals because it disrupts your mitochondria, which are—the— they're little organelles inside of almost all of your cells, and that are producing energy. Super important. And in Parkinson's disease, the mitochondria in your neurons kind of become dysfunctional. And you can do— you can cause this by just giving them this pesticide, paraquat, or rotenone. And that will basically cause their dopamine-producing neurons to die, and because they can't make energy. So they die and they get motor dysfunction very similar to Parkinson's. And so I remember, it's funny, I remember the first time I was learning about this in, you know, this was actually even before I was in graduate school, but also in graduate school, I was like, oh, I'm putting this stuff, you know, to give it to a mouse to study, you know, Parkinson's or to induce a Parkinson's, like, human sort of model of Parkinson's. And this was, like, put on our produce. And I was like, that was, like, really kind of upsetting to think about. So I think the point I'm getting at here is, you know, obviously, like, as more data comes out and we learn and go, oh, we can't, you know, we have to stop using that. But there's been studies even on the newer types of pesticides that are used on produce. You know, there have been studies that have shown they're probably not good to have on a daily basis because of that insidious damage that they're causing. And I get—you know, people are probably thinking of like glyphosate, right? Roundup is a big one as well. So if you can eat organic, I do think there's like some— there's like the dirty dozen, you know, and the clean— I forgot how many.
Shane Parrish: Doesn't Europe like block most of this stuff? Like, why is it?
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly which— glyphosate, maybe they do. They do ban more stuff. I don't know all the regulations differences and why those regulatory— maybe you can have someone on the podcast that can illuminate that.
Shane Parrish: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But I do know that when it comes to those pesticides that are used, there are certain vegetables and fruits that are very thin-skinned that absorb it. So even if you wash the vegetable off, it's already been absorbed through the skin. And so like, let's talk about an avocado versus a strawberry, right?
Shane Parrish: Yeah.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like, is it so important to eat organic for avocados? Not really. It's got a really thick skin. So that isn't— it's really protecting the fruit. Strawberries, on the other hand, have a very thin skin, you know, and so that would be something that you want to choose organic. I would say that, yes, organic would be the best choice. If you can't always afford organic, then choose— okay, bananas, is that so important? Probably not. Avocados? Probably not. Oranges? Probably not. Apples? Yes, right? Thin skin. And there's like, again, there's like lists out there that like will list the things that are like, okay, if you're going to not do organic, here's the vegetables and fruits that are the safest to not opt.
Shane Parrish: I love the Dirty Dozen list, but it's actually more practical to remember the thickness of the skin as sort of like the barrier, the membrane between pesticides and you. How do you wash your produce? And I say this having seen, I think last night on Instagram, some guy putting baking soda and vinegar and like soaking it for 20 minutes. And like, is that how we wash produce? Like, how do you wash produce to like get stuff off of it? What do you do?
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I just use water. I just use water and wash it because I do buy organic as well. So you're thinking about pesticides, you're like, oh, well, I don't want to get Parkinson's disease or cancer, right? It's causing damage. But so my mentor, Bruce Ames, he's, you know, now 96 years old. I don't know how many years ago it was. It must have been back in the '80s. He had done some experiments with a hematologist from his lab, and they were looking at what happens if you don't get enough folate. So that's another one of those essential micronutrients that you have to get from your diet. Guess what? Leafy greens are one of the best sources of folate. So leafy greens are just—they're—they're packed with certain micronutrients, but they don't have a lot of protein, right? So.
Shane Parrish: Uh-huh.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Folate, again, we have to get from our diet, and if we don't get enough folate, it actually causes damage to our DNA much more than eating a pesticide would because folate is required to make new DNA. It's required to make new DNA. And so, you know, we're constantly making new cells in our body, and if you don't have that folate, the precursor to make one of the nucleotides of DNA, isn't going to be there. And so your body substitutes something else in there that's from RNA that's not supposed to be there, and it causes DNA damage. And he had done these studies where it was like, he took animals, put them on a low folate diet similar to what some people in the United States get. And then he took the other group of animals and he irradiated them with ionizing radiation. Okay, this is like, yeah, you're gonna want to avoid this, right? And the folate deficiency was like ionizing radiation. It did the exact same thing. It caused double-strand breaks in DNA, exactly like the ionizing radiation. So not getting that important micronutrient from your leafy greens, folate, was like getting ionizing radiation. So again, back to that theme that we started with, thinking about what you need is so important. And we're sitting here talking about pesticides, oh, we should avoid them. Yes, but guess what's worse? If you don't eat the greens, you're not going to get enough folate. Although nowadays, folate's so important, it's, you know, it's in every processed food. They put the oxidized form of it, folic acid, which we can get into. You know, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, oh, it's another form of folate and it is more stable, which is why it's used in processed foods rather than folate. But it is not the exact same as folate. So it's preferable if you're going to get the folate from your diet, from leafy greens.
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