I've talked in the last two posts about what organic means and how it affects our health. This time I will finally give you the practical information about buying organic foods.
Pesticides
When it comes to consuming pesticides, less is better. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) looked at how many pesticides were on various fruits and vegetables. They discovered that people can lower their pesticide exposure by NINETY percent if they choose to eat the twelve least contaminated foods instead of the twelve most contaminated foods.
If you eat the twelve most contaminated, you would consume fourteen different pesticides. If you eat the twelve least contaminated, you would less than two per day!
Making the Choice
The best way to deal with this issue is to make sure that you are buying the organic version of the twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables. The EWG named these the "dirty dozen". If you can't afford organic, then be sure to buy mostly from the least contaminated list.
Dirty Dozen
- Peaches
- Apples
- Sweet Bell Peppers
- Celery
- Nectarines
- Strawberries
- Cherries
- Lettuce
- Grapes - Imported
- Pears
- Spinach
- Potatoes
Cleanest 12
- Onions
- Avocado
- Sweet Corn-Frozen
- Pineapples
- Mango
- Sweet Peas-Frozen
- Asparagus
- Kiwi
- Bananas
- Cabbage
- Broccoli
- Eggplant
The EWG considered how people wash and prepare their foods when they did the test. When you wash or rinse your produce, you remove some levels of pesticides but it does not completely eliminate them. If you peel a potato or apple, you can remove more pesticides but you also lose important phytochemicals and nutrients when you do that.
The Bottom Line
Remember to eat plenty of plant foods, wash them well and buy organic when possible. Use this list to guide you at the grocery store. For a very handy pocket edition of the list, check out this website:
http://www.foodnews.org/pdf/EWG_pesticide.pdf
Eat up!
- Julie
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