Stretching your Food Dollar 

 Organic vs non-organic

Dr. Michael Kane

In
these tough economic times stretching your dollar is almost a
necessity. When it comes to making choices about food quality some
simple information can assist you in this goal.

There are
certain fruits and vegetables that arrive to your supermarket with a
high pesticide residue. These chemicals are potential hazards to your
health and should be reduced as much as possible. A number of studies
have tested residue of toxic pesticides in the urine of children who
ate non-organic produce.  These levels decreased dramatically when the
diet was switched to organic forms of produce.

The
suggestion would be to buy the organic forms of highly pesticided
fruits and veggetables and to buy the non-organic forms of the produce
with the lowest amounts of residue.

The Environmental Working Group compiles a list of the top contaminated foods they have called “The Dirty Dozen”.

The Dirty Dozen:
The twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables include:

• Peaches
• Apples
• Sweet Bell Peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Strawberries
• Cherries
• Pears
• Grapes (Imported)
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Potatoes

The Cleanest dozen includes:

• Onions
• Avocado
• Sweet Corn (Frozen)
• Pineapples
• Mango
• Asparagus
• Sweet Peas (Frozen)
• Kiwi Fruit
• Bananas
• Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Papaya

So
just using this list you can make some dollar savings.  Buy organic
forms of the highly contaminated group and non-organic forms of the
foods low in pesticide residue.

We also have a recipe for a food wash that will assist in cleaning your purchased produce.  Cllick to see a copy of this food wash.