Produce: The 14 items you MUST by organic and why

Photo courtesy of sell-buy-machines.com

 

If you can’t purchase all organic produce, you should absolutely try to avoid certain conventional fruits and vegetables.

 

It’s true, organic produce is more expensive than conventional. However, you really get what you pay for when you buy it. Organic produce is grown without pesticides, herbicides, or other chemicals that are toxic to both our bodies and our environment.

“Yeah, but I wash and/or peel my conventional produce, so it’s fine.”

This could not be more false. The chemicals penetrate the skins of fruits and veggies and get into the flesh itself. If it’s in the food, it ends up in YOU.

Some produce carries little risk of carrying pesticides/herbicides, as few are needed when crowing these crops. These include thicker skinned fruits like mangoes, avocados, cantaloupe, pineapple, and papaya, as well as heartier vegetables like cabbage, asparagus, and onions. Other conventional produce that use fewer pesticides include peas, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, kiwi, grapefruit, and eggplant (please note that even though they contain fewer pesticides, this does not mean they are not genetically modified.)

Unfortunately, the above are the rare exception. Also unfortunate is the price you have to pay to avoid chemicals being sprayed (and then absorbed) on your food. Organic produce is on average 40-50% more than their equivalent conventional alternatives.

The biggest problem is the fact that it is nearly impossible to avoid non-organic produce unless you only only eat the organic versions you buy for yourself every single time you eat fruits or vegetables- conventional crops are literally everywhere we go. In an ideal world, this would never be an issue, but the reality in the United States is that eating organically for every meal every single day is not an option, unless you NEVER go out to eat, never go to a party, a friend’s house, or on vacation. Like I said- conventional produce is EVERYWHERE!

There are many reasons that people are not eating organic produce 100% of the time, the two main being: 1. Limited access to organic produce due to a number of factors (mainly, what your local grocery stores carry) and 2. It costs too much!!

 

(I will be writing a post about what to do if you have no access to organic produce because it is not in any stores around you- keep a look out!)

 

So what can we do to help protect ourselves if we can’t do organic all the time?

 

Pick and choose your battles wisely. If it is not possible to buy everything organic, these are the fruits and veggies you absolutely SHOULD buy organic versions of:

 

Photo courtesy of joyushealth.ca

 

The above are the fruits and vegetables  are known as the “Dirty Dozen Plus,” named the Environmental Working Group, the organization that did the data analysis. These were most likely to be heavily contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals (in the United States).

 

Taken directly from the Environmental Working Group’s Website:

 

“For the past nine years, EWG has scrutinized pesticide-testing data generated by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration. These sources are the basis for EWG’s signature Dirty Dozen™ list of foods most commonly contaminated with pesticides…This year [2013], as in 2012, we have expanded the Dirty Dozen™ with a Plus category to highlight two crops – summer squashes and leafy greens – that did not meet traditional Dirty Dozen™ criteria but were commonly contaminated with highly toxic pesticides.”

 

A summary of what they found, taken directly from maximizedliving.com:

 

• Apples. The dirtiest of the bunch. Ninety-nine percent of apples contained at least one pesticide.
• Sweet Bell Peppers. One of these was as contaminated as a single grape.
• Celery. At worst, a single sample revealed 13 pesticides.
• Cherry Tomatoes. Similar to celery, one sample also contained the residue of 13 different pesticides.
• Cucumbers. The third most contaminated vegetable, these should always be peeled and rinsed before eating.
• Grapes. “A single grape tested positive for 15 pesticides.”
• Hot Peppers. Previously not on the list, recent tests showed these contain the seventh greatest amount of pesticide residues.
• Nectarines (Imported). Every imported nectarine tested was shown to contain pesticide residue.
• Peaches. Contained the fourth highest amount of pesticides among all fruits tested.
• Potatoes. “The average potato had much higher total weight of pesticides than any other food crop.”
• Spinach. After celery, the second most contaminated conventional vegetable.
• Strawberries. Ranked as the second dirtiest conventionally grown fruit on the market.

Therefore, you should definitely try to buy the entire list from the “Dirty Dozen Plus” in their organic forms as opposed to conventional.

 

If you don’t know where to look, here is a great resource for finding stores that sell organic produce in the United States: Organic.org Store Finder. Of course, check your local farmers markets or Co-ops too!

Now, how much will it cost to eat these if you purchase organic versions?

 

Here is a chart I made of the “Dirty Dozen Plus” with both their average conventional and organic prices (in the U.S.):

 

 

The prices were taken from a variety of sources through the internet, and were from a variety of years- there is no database that compiles all such yearly data (that I could find after hours of research!) Also, many of the prices reflect when the produce is IN SEASON. To get the best price, purchase organic produce when it’s in season.

 

GMO Note: The most genetically modified (GMO) crops used for produce in the U.S. are corn, soy, zucchini, yellow summer squash, and papaya (specifically Hawaiian grown). To avoid GMOs, purchase these items strictly in their organic forms.

Tip to being able to afford more organic produce: Give up something small in your everyday life that you don’t NEED. If you go get a daily cup of coffee on the go, maybe cut it down to every other day and use the dollars you save to put towards purchasing organic produce. Or if you like to go out to eat twice a week, make it once, and put what you saved towards your grocery bill. There are many little swaps we can all do to help us afford these (if not all) organic fruits and veggies.

To sum it up, I’ve taken the following paragraph from the same maximizedliving.com article as was used before:

“A recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health demonstrated that eating organic produce can significantly reduce bodily toxicity. The study provided five consecutive days’ worth of organic food to children who typically ate a non-organic, conventional diet. After just five days, almost all pesticides had disappeared from the subjects’ urine samples. ‘This shows there definitely is a beneficial effect of eating organic produce,’ said study leader Dr. Alex Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology.”

 

Now you have all the facts- it’s time to decide for yourself!