Dirty Dozen: A guide for pesticides in produce

Hello Friends…

…this time of the year gets me excited! With all the fresh and local produce available, farmers markets popping up in every neighborhood… I really feel like a kid in a candy store 🙂 🙂

And with all the beautiful fruits and vegetables available I want to make sure I get the best quality possible. The thing is, not every piece of produce is created equal. Unfortunately even the local veggies and fruit can sometimes be polluted with pesticides and other toxic elements that could be quite harmful to our health. Obviously in the best case scenario, we would buy all our produce organic to ensure our food is as clean as possible, however, that’s quite unrealistic.

The first challenge is the price -Organic produce is definitely more expansive and our budgets might not allow for that.

The second challenge is the availability – not all grocery stores carry our favorite produce, with the organic label.

Fortunately, there is a wonderful organization called Environmental Working Group (EWG) – they put all our favorite fruits and vegetables under series of careful tests and every year release a list called Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 to help us make smarter choices and guide us consumers in the right direction when selecting our produce. You can get the most up to date guide here.

Be sure to sign up for their newsletter, or check back each year when they release the newest tested list for the Dirty Dozen & Clean Fifteen.

With love and light,

Zuzana