By Michael Pomranz

Update: Other doctors are calling the study's findings into question, with one from the American Council on Health and Science even describing it as "junk science." Pun not intended?

Think “organic” is just a way for Whole Foods to charge you $3 for an apple? A new study published in the journal Human Reproduction may have you thinking otherwise.

Researchers at Harvard looked at semen samples from 155 men over an 18-month period to determine what, if any, effect pesticides were having on their fertility. Participants were given a food frequency questionnaire, which was compared to a list of fruits and vegetables ranked by their pesticide contamination using data culled from the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program. This method allowed researchers to get a broad sense of each participant’s pesticide exposure.

What they found isn’t promising: Broken down by quartiles, the men who ate the most high-pesticide fruits and vegetables had a 49% lower total sperm count than those who ate the least of these supposedly healthy foods. As if that’s not enough of a kick in the nuts (almost literally), researchers also found that the high-pesticide group had 32% fewer normal sperm.

If there’s any good news, it’s that even the senior author of the study himself remains skeptical of the findings. “As far as we are aware, this is the first time that something like this has been reported,” Jorge Chavarro, MD, an assistant professor of nutrition and epidemiology, told TIME. “It will be very important to replicate these results in other studies.”

That said, Chavarro recommended that if you want to limit your pesticide exposure, going organic can help. He also suggested you might want to stay away from what’s known as the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list, covering the 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide loads.

So what exactly makes the “Dirty Dozen” cut? For 2015, the list includes apples, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, grapes, celery, spinach, sweet bell peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, imported snap peas and potatoes. Crap. Maybe it’s time to have a steak for lunch.