Which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residues?

Organic produce is great — if it’s available locally and you can afford it. But what if the organic section of your grocery store doesn’t have the produce you need? Or what if you can’t afford it?

In these cases, it’s important to know which “conventional” fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residues, and which have the least.

The website www.foodnews.org calls these two groups “The Dirty Dozen” and “The Clean Fifteen”.

Most contaminated: THE DIRTY DOZEN

FRUITS:
Peaches
Apples
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Imported grapes
Pears

VEGETABLES:
Sweet bell peppers
Celery
Kale
Lettuce
Carrots

Least Contaminated: THE CLEAN FIFTEEN

FRUITS:
Avocados
Pineapples
Mangoes
Kiwi
Papayas
Watermelon
Grapefruit

VEGETABLES:
Onions
Sweet corn
Asparagus
Sweet peas
Cabbage
Eggplant
Broccoli
Tomatoes
Sweet potatoes

To download a PDF guide, or an iPhone application with the above list, visit www.foodnews.org

If you don’t have the budget to buy “all organic”, you can save money by buying conventional avocados, onions, and other items from the CLEAN 15 list.

In The Vegan / Vegetarian Mastery Program, this is one of many tips we discuss in the lesson called “How To Save Money On Health Food And Organic Produce”.

In that lesson, you’ll learn how to save big by shopping at the right places, get discounts of 33% – 67% at Farmer’s markets, and get “expired” organic food for free. You’ll also discover the cheapest Internet sources of staple health foods and specialty ingredients.

If money isn’t a problem, how do you cope with availability problems? For example, what if you want to make peach pie, but local peaches aren’t organic?

One solution is to plan your menu based on the organic produce that IS available.

For example, peaches aren’t in seas0n in November — but pumpkins are. If you can buy organic pumpkins, you might consider making pumpkin pie instead. Then when peaches are in season again — next summer — you can buy organic peaches again.

If you have other suggestions, please post a reply to this blog.

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