How You Can Be a Smart Produce Picker

I went to our local Publix Supermarket the other day. I'm one of those "green bag ladies". When they say paper or plastic, I proudly hand them my green bags. However, this one day, I started a discussion with the cashier about going green and trying to be protective of my family's health when it comes to what we eat. I was going on and on about how expensive it was to shop "organic" and sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't on account of the cost. Well, the clerk handed me a little reference card with a list of a dozen clean and dirty fruits and vegetables to be aware of when it comes to pesticides. Also, on the card there was a website called Foodnews.org that had a lot more information regarding what produce is heavily contaminated with pesticides despite peeling or washing it. You would assume that peeling takes care of the pesticides, but for some fruits and vegetables it makes no difference due to the type of chemicals used. Besides, when we peel our fruits or vegetables we take a lot of nutrition away.

I was shocked to see this list of fruits and vegetables that I use daily. This list was developed by a not for profit organization called Environmental Working Group (EWG). They conducted 43,000 tests on 43 produce for pesticide contamination. The produce was collected between 2000 and 2005 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These are the fruits and vegetables that are marked worst to least exposure to pesticides:

The highest pesticide load started out with peaches. Followed by:
Apples
Sweet bell peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Lettuce
Imported Grapes
Pears
Spinach
Potatoes
Carrots
Green Beans
Hot Peppers
Cucumbers
Raspberries
Plums
Oranges
Domestic grapes
Cauliflower
Tangerines
Mushrooms
Cantaloupes
Lemons
Honeydew Melons
Grapefruits
Winter Squash
Tomatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Watermelons
Blueberries
Papayas
Eggplants
Broccoli
Cabbage
Bananas
Kiwis
Asparagus
Sweet peas-frozen
Mangos
Pineapples
Sweet corn-frozen
Avocados
And the least amount of pesticide contamination was onions.

When I went to this website and saw this list and continued to click on more information about this problem, I was disturbed to read that eating the twelve most contaminated produce would expose me to about fourteen pesticides per day. Furthermore, if you ate the twelve least contaminated fruits and vegetables, it would expose you to less than two pesticides per day. It sort of reminded me of that 1987 commercial where they showed a man who held up an egg and said, "This is your brain." The camera zooms to a frying pan and he then added, "This is your brain on drugs, any questions?" It didn't take me long to realize how important it is regarding our choices of fruits and vegetables or to go all organic in produce.

You do have to be careful on what is considered organic. It must have the USDA Certified Organic label, Otherwise, you might not be getting what you are paying for.

So, now I ask myself, is it worth saving an extra $50-75 per month by not going organic. That's how much I figure I would have to pay out for my husband and me. Is there really a price tag we can set on our health? Like the saying goes, without our health, we have nothing.