Is it worth buying Organic Fruits and Vegetables?

How do I know if I should be buying organic fruits and vegetables? Why waste the money some might say.

Aside from what I get from my garden, I try to buy as much local organic, in-season produce as I can. It is the freshest and therefore the best tasting especially when it comes to tomatoes or fruits like peaches and nectarines.

Local organic farms are my number one choice followed by farmers markets.

And a side note about organic farms – you aren’t always going to find that they have the official organic label. To officially go organic, it can cost a lot of money and many times farmers are already choosing practices that are organic or beyond. What you can do if talk to your farmers and see what they are doing for pest management to get a feel for what they are producing.

So when things aren’t in season or I don’t have the ability to pick at u-pick farms, choices for organic produce get a lot more slim and expensive in the grocery stores.

I still like to buy as much organic fruit and vegetables as I can and forgo certain produce if I can’t find it in organic, yet not everyone has that choice.

So how do I know which vegetables I should worry about buying organic and which ones might not be as worrisome to buy non-organic?

In comes the EWG (The Environmental Working Group). According to their website, their “mission is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. With breakthrough research and education, we drive consumer choice and civic action.”

The Dirty Dozen

Every year they take a look at conventionally grown produce and come up with a list called The Dirty Dozen. These 12 types of produce are the most dangerous to eat due to the high amounts of pesticides or the types of pesticides found on them. The information on the list came from their website.

These tests for pesticide residue are done on the fruits and vegetables as people would eat them. For example, since most people wash their fruit before eating, the fruit tested by USDA is washed and or pealed before the tests take place. The fruit in these tests would be even more dangerous if not washed!

These Dirty Dozen are what you really should avoid unless you are buying organic or growing your own.

You can read more on the EWG website about why we would want to avoid pesticides on our fruits and vegetables as much as possible.

Here is a list of the Dirty Dozen

1. Strawberries
2. Spinach (97% contain pesticide residues)
3. Nectarines
4. Apples (80% have a pesticide banned in Europe – diphenylamine)
5. Grapes (96% contain pesticide residues)
6. Peaches (99% contain pesticide residues!)
7. Cherries (30 percent of cherry samples contained iprodione, a pesticide not allowed in Europe, which may cause cancer.)
8. Pears
9. Tomatoes
10. Celery
11. Potatoes (Conventional potatoes had more pesticide residues by weight than any other crop.)
12. Sweet and Hot peppers (not as many chemicals, but more toxic types)

Strawberries

Unfortunately strawberries are on the top of the Dirty Dozen list due to the amount of pesticides found on them. Such a widely eaten fruit, yet according to the EWG’s website, 1/3 of all conventionally grown strawberries contained 10 or more pesticides on them. One sample of strawberries even had 22 pesticide residues! Are you kidding me? We might as well be drinking poison!

Strawberries are a family favorite u-pick option, but my one year old wants to eat them year round. So he gets them when we can find organic varieties. With all the pesticide residue on the conventionally grown types, it just isn’t worth the risk.

The Clean Fifteen

Along with the Dirty Dozen, you can also shop the Clean Fifteen. These produce have the least amounts of pesticides found on them when tested.

If you are shopping the Clean Fifteen that are not organic, you will be better off than if you were buying anything from the Dirty Dozen list. Yet, they are not entirely pesticide free.

Since ability to buy organic produce in some markets and grocery budgets are real issues when it comes to buying organic verses non-organic, knowing the Clean Fifteen will help you both stretch your budget and buy the safest items for your family.

Here is a list of the Clean Fifteen

1. Avocados (less than 1% of samples had pesticides)
2. Sweet corn (small percentage GMO)
3. Pineapple
4. Cabbage (86% pesticide free)
5. Onion
6. Sweet peas frozen
7. Papayas (though almost 75% are GMO)
8. Asparagus
9. Mangoes
10. Eggplants
11. Honeydew melon
12. Kiwi
13. Cantaloupe
14. Cauliflower
15. Broccoli

The list above has a wide variety of pesticide residue found in the samples percentage wise. With number one through number ten on the list, at least 75% of the samples were pesticide free and only had 1-3 types of pesticides found on the samples tested.

Not perfect, but so much better than what we find on the Dirty Dozen list. Number 11-15 on the Clean Fifteen really grow in numbers of pesticides found, but they are still much lower than the Dirty Dozen list. I still prefer to buy organic cauliflower and broccoli especially.

So how do we make sure we are doing the best for our families when purchasing produce?

Buy local, organic fresh fruit and vegetables when possible from u-pick or farmers markets.

Wash your fruits and vegetables before you eat them. There are even ways to use baking soda or vinegar to help remove some of the extra toxins.

After that use the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen lists to help you.

I have created printables for both lists that you can take with you to the grocery store. Enter your email below and I will send you a password to my Free Printable Library, where you can also snag any of my other printables.

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What about growing your own?

Growing my own fruits and vegetables is my favorite solution to this problem. You can even head on over here to find out about starting a homestead orchard.

Yet since that isn’t always something we can do, knowing about the dirty dozen and clean fifteen can help you in your decision making process with purchasing food for your family.