Clean Vs. Dirty....The More You Know

Now this may sound crazy to some, but if there has to be a sign posted like the one above......or workers that are spraying need to wear a whole suit with protective gear (as seen below)....why would we willingly put those fruits and vegetables in our bodies? Pesticide ridden produce are a majority of the produce you find in each and every grocery store around the country. 

I have learned a lot from the EWG (Environmental Working Group) website and also Jen's (Jen is a friend and a health and wellness coach) blog. Jen outlines the findings of the EWG study in her blog. CLICK HERE to read her response and analysis of the report. CLICK HERE for the abbreviated summary of the report straight from EWG.

My extremely brief version of the situation is that the EWG says 2/3 of the produce in our stores have extremely high levels of toxins on them....yuck! They are usually covered in not just one type of pesticide, but multiple. When learning about the toxins and the junk I was putting in my body, I had to educate myself on which foods I needed to buy organic and which ones I could get away with buying non-organic. It boils down to understanding and buying according to the "Clean Fifteen" vs. the "Dirty Dozen". You want to always buy the produce on the dirty dozen list organically. The clean fifteen contain low amounts of yucky stuff and are ok to buy non-organically. Here is a quick snapshot from the EWG website:

The EWG website, as I stated before has a ton of information on produce and how to keep your family healthy when buying fruits and veggies. I highly recommend browsing their website to get all of the current research.

Think you can't afford to buy organic? I thought so too! Jen also wrote about this topic, so CLICK HERE to check that out. 

What I've found is that if I stick to the clean 15 and dirty dozen lists, buying organic isn't that expensive. Being on an extremely tight budget, the thought of buying organic scared me a lot. However, once I broke it down, it wasn't too bad. One thing that I eat a lot of are bell peppers. I started out making that one change. I started buying my peppers organic. After that, I made sure to get my potatoes, and also my cucumbers because those were the two things I ate a good amount of as well. I tried organic strawberries and blueberries and fell in love! They just seem to taste better without the waxy, yucky gunk on them! They tasted like the ones we used to pick right from the bush as kids! Imagine that!

Here is a family that was part of a recent experiment in Sweden. They were like most families, and ate mostly, if not completely, non-organic foods. Watch the short video below to see how it affected them (and how it is affecting all of us!) This video was posed by CoopSverige on YouTube and was picked up by a lot of different media outlets. It popped up on my Facebook feed a few weeks ago. For more on this study CLICK HERE.

With how busy everyone's lives are these days, grabbing whatever is closest to you in the store seems like the best idea at the time. Buying fruits and veggies seems like the healthy choice, however, when they are soaked in toxins and pesticides, the health benefits of those foods are lost. With knowledge comes change. I have started seeing more a push for organic produce in grocery stores, and hopefully that will become more of a norm. You can always check out your local Farmers Market for great organic produce as well! With our produce providing low levels of health benefits, we need to rid ourselves of the gunk and keep our bodies healthy.