To Buy or not to Buy ORGANIC when Navigating the Produce Aisle
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a profoundly helpful group that helps consumers navigate the world of buying all sorts of products - including what we eat, what we put on our body, and what we clean our house with. Their goal is to help us make the healthiest decisions, and avoid products that can be harmful to our health.
Most recently the EWG published their list of the “dirtiest” and “cleanest” produce on the market for 2022. Every year EWG publishes an updated list of produce, and its published guidelines are worth noting. We always have the dilemma of whether or not to spend the extra dollar to trade up to organic food, and the more I learn, the more I can honestly tell you, it’s worth the extra buck.
It’s pretty unbelievable how many pesticides are sprayed on our crops. So unless you buy organic, your body is having to deal with the processing of pesticides constantly.
Glyphosate (commercial brand name Round-up) is one of the more prevalent pesticides, and is used on just about everything. I certainly remember my Dad spraying it on the weeds creeping out of the cracks in the sidewalk.
But most prolifically, it is used on all our wheat crops to aid in their harvesting. If you think through the implications of this … every cereal, every loaf of bread, every cracker, every bagel, your morning oatmeal and flour (unless organic), has glyphosate in it. Not to mention most of our vegetable and fruit crops.
Like so much in our modern diet, glyphosate in our body pushes us down the continuum of edging closer to chronic disease. It just mucks around in our body, causing leaky gut, interfering with our liver function, suppressing our absorption of key nutrients. Nothing good that’s for sure.
The red flag coming out of the latest list from EWG is a cancer causing agent called dachthal, which is found in particular abundance on the kale, collards and mustard greens crops. In 1995, the EPA cited it as a possible carcinogen, linked to liver and thyroid tumors, as well as damage to lung and kidneys. It has been banned in Europe for years. Unfortunately the EPA has continued to allow the use of it on our crops.
So I wanted to share the new list from the EWG - “The Dirty Dozen” - the fruits/vegetables that are most heavily laden with pesticides. On the flip side, there is also “The Clean 15” - those fruits and vegetables that still contain some level of pesticide but at a much lower level, and often can be more easily washed off. These lists help us navigate the produce aisle by sharing a list of the “dirtiest produce” - meaning those that are more laden with pesticides and makes sense to buy organic, as well as the “cleanest.” The cleanest produce tends to have harder skins that can be pealed - and if you don’t feel like paying extra for organic, these items are relatively safe conventional products.
So here are the lists:
The Dirty Dozen:
Strawberries
Spinach
Kale, Collards, & Mustard Greens
Nectarines
Apples
Grapes
Bell and Hot peppers
Cherries
Peaches
Pears
Celery
Tomatoes
The Clean 15:
Avocados
Sweet Corn
Pineapple
Onions
Papaya
Sweet Peas (frozen)
Asparagus
Honeydew Melon
Kiwi
Cabbage
Mushrooms
Cantaloupe
Mangos
Watermelon
Sweet Potatoes
When you can find the time, check out the EWG site (https://www.ewg.org). They have rated thousands of products for safety, and you can search across many different categories. You may find some suprising information that might steer you in a new direction when it comes to buying certain products.
As always, please reach out with questions (anne@anneengelhealth.com), or if there are specific topic areas that you are interested in learning more about.