The German consumer magazine 'Öko-Test' warns people about lettuce from supermarkets that it is often loaded with pesticides and nitrate. During spot checks in the ten largest German supermarket chains, up to nine different kinds of pesticide were found on a number of lettuce varieties.
Ordinary lettuce, iceberg lettuce and lamb lettuce are the most bought lettuce varieties in Germany. But during the colder time of the year the lettuce comes from greenhouses, or huge vegetable plantations in the South of Europe. This is why lettuce is often covered in the residue of fertilisers like nitrate, and pesticides residue.
'Öko-Tests' examined 30 samples in total. The researchers bought three different types of lettuce from each of the ten shops. The lettuces were all from conventional cultivation. Organic wares, as previous researches confirmed, are generally free of poisonous residue.
The researchers had the lettuce examined in a special laboratory for the presence of residues of around 550 types of pesticides and the presence of nitrate. The result: only four of the thirty samples were free of pesticide residue. All other samples were loaded with a cocktail of different insecticides, weed poison, anti-fungals and nitrate. Nine samples were heavily loaded, and one even broke the limit of legally allowed pesticide residue. Aldi Markt, Aldi Süd, Lidl and Norma eventually received the test result 'good', Kaufland and Real received the test result 'sufficient' and Edeke, Penny, Netto and Rewe received the test result 'fail'.
