AN APPLE A DAY is a good habit, but that habit may contain some unwanted residue in your consumption. Conventionally grown produce is sprayed with pesticides, fungicides and herbicides to increase the harvest and increase the eye-appeal on the grocery shelf.

Apples: 42 Pesticide Residues Found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.3

CELERY is a great snack, plain or with peanut butter or cream cheese. It’s also a common ingredient for soup, stew, potato salad, and many other recipes.

Celery: 64 Pesticide Residues Found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.3

SWEET BELL PEPPERS are one of my personal favorites and sometimes the fresh, raw fruit doesn’t last through the snacking to add to a recipe!

Sweet Bell Peppers: 49 Pesticide Residues Found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.3

Reduce the amount of toxic residue in your daily consumption by buying organic produce, grown without toxic sprays and soil additives. You can lower your pesticide intake substantially by avoiding the 12 most contaminated (conventionally grown) fruits and vegetables and eating toxin-free produce buying organic instead. You’ll realize the value of eating organic produce that does not contain toxic residue by learning what dangerous pesticide residues are and how they affect you, the environment, and our agricultural system, including bees, nature’s pollinator. Take a few moments to visit the websites in the Resource Box below to see what toxins the fruits and vegetables you’re serving today may contain.

Here’s a scary fact: GRAPES imported from Chili are fumigated with methyl bromide on arrival at U.S. ports. Methyl bromide is classified as a Category One compound by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency.) This classification contains the most deadly substances in regulation, and is a toxic, poisonous, ozone-depleting chemical known to cause neurologic damage and reproductive harm.2 Sound like something you’d like to ingest?

Pesticides are on our food, even after washing; pesticides stay in our bodies for years; pesticides stay in our environment, traveling many miles on wind, water and dust. 3

Pesticides are a public health problem affecting our food, our health, and other agricultural concerns like toxic damage to bees and bee colonies. Pesticide residue results in toxicity in various forms: carcinogens, hormone disruptors, neurotoxins, developmental or reproductive toxins, and bee toxins. 3

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) states, “This year we have expanded the Dirty Dozen™ with a Plus category to highlight two crops — green beans and leafy greens, meaning, kale and collard greens – that did not meet traditional Dirty Dozen ™criteria but were commonly contaminated with highly toxic organophosphate insecticides. These insecticides are toxic to the nervous system and have been largely removed from agriculture over the past decade. But they are not banned and still show up on some food crops.” 1

Here’s the complete Dirty Dozen Plus TM list 1:

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Sweet bell peppers
4. Peaches
5. Strawberries
6. Nectarines – imported
7. Grapes
8. Spinach
9. Lettuce
10. Cucumbers
11. Blueberries – domestic
12. Potatoes

PLUS Green Beans

PLUS Kale/Greens

Buy organic, or grow your own! Try growing some easy-to-grow vegetables and herbs. Start with a square-foot of container garden if you don’t have garden space outdoors. Carrots are easy to grow. Lettuce, cucumbers and herbs all make a wonderful crop of home-grown organic, and most importantly, pesticide-free produce. Locate certified-organic producers, farmers’ markets, and local farms to buy organic fruits and vegetables in your area, easily found online. For a list of resources contact the author through her worm power compost site, noted in the Resources box.

Source by Rebecca J Boxberger