To support my work and start growing your own organic food at home, checkout the 180 open-pollinated, non-gmo, and pesticide-free heirloom seeds that I grow, pack, and carry here on my site.
American grocery stores mist their produce with a water. While the goal of the mist is to make the produce appear fresher, it actually accelerates wilting and spoilage. Since the water lines are prone to bacterial growth, grocery stores like Sprouts Farmers Market use pesticides like Producemaxx.
The pesticide Producemaxx is approved for conventional and organic produce to kill e.coli, salmonella, and listeria. Producemaxx contains the active ingredient Hypochlorous Acid (HOCL) which forms free available chlorine. Producemaxx is diluted in water and used in misters or sinks on whole and cut produce to form 30-60 ppm of free available chlorine. Grocery store employees have informed me that they usually eyeball the measurements. While we cannot be 100% certain that it's within that exact range, it is unlikely that the concentration would vastly exceed the limit of 60 ppm.
It is unclear what residues would remain on the produce as it is continually sprayed and doesn’t have to be washed off according to the EPA. It is reasonable to assume it would only be a portion of the 30-60 ppm since that concentration is used across all of the produce. Washing produce at home with water and baking soda would remove any remaining residues of the hypochlorous acid.
Our bodies produce small amounts of hypochlorous acid to heal wounds. HOCL is well research in skincare, but there’s no evidence on the safety or health impacts of ingesting HOCL. While it is widely considered that hypochlorous acid is safe to ingest in amounts above the potential exposure level, research is needed for confirmation.
One small rodent study found no systemic and gastrointestinal effects of ingesting HOCl which doesn’t give a great answer for the potential impact in humans. Another study looked at the impact of aerosolized HOCL on human fibroblasts and found cytotoxicity and genotoxicity at 500 ppm for 9 minutes but not 300 ppm at 3 minutes, which isn't translatable to HOCL ingestion.
We are not able to say with 100% confidence that Producemaxx does or does not post any risk to human health. With that being said, there isn't any research casting doubt over the safety of HOCL in Producemaxx. The short answer is that more testing is needed, and it's up to you to decide for yourself. Given that there are at most miniscule concentrations of hypochlorous acid remaining on the produce, I would not be stressed out about it.
The other common pesticide used at grocery stores is called Antimicrobial Fruit & Vegetable Treatment. The Ecolab pesticide is approved in sinks but not misters. The pesticide contains Lactic acid and Dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid, a more concerning ingredient. The NOSB voted 13-0 to deny SDBS approval for use in organic produce because of it's risks on development and reproductive health.
The main takeaway is that grocery stores should stop misting produce altogether. While you should not be stressed about this information, the only way to be 100% certain of what's in your produce is to source it from local farms or grow it at home yourself. To help you do this, I mapped over 6,800 local farms across the country and carry over 180 varieties of heirloom seeds.
Sources
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