Research paper

In 2022, a group of Korean scientists published a research paper titled “the Effectiveness of Different Washing Strategies on Pesticide Residue Removal: The First Comparative Study on Leafy Vegetables”. This is the first comparative study to reveal the effect of removing pesticide residues from five artificially contaminated leafy vegetables (lettuce, perilla leaves, spinach, crown daisy, and ssamchoo (Brassica lee ssp. namai)) using different removal methods. 

Here is an extraction from the result of the analysis in the paper: “Overall, the reductions for each method were as follows: running water (77.0 ± 18.0%), boiling (59.5 ± 31.2%), alkaline water (56.4 ± 18.0%), blanching (54.9 ± 25.9%), ultrasonic cleaning (52.8 ± 18.7%), NaHCO3 (52.0 ± 19.2%), stagnant water (51.4 ± 16.4%), vinegar (51.2 ± 18.3%), detergent (43.7 ± 14.5%). Washing with running water led to the highest removal efficiency among all methods, whereas washing with detergent led to the lowest removal efficiency.”