One of my goals is to try to incorporate as much organic food into my family’s diet as my grocery budget will allow. The high cost of organic groceries makes it nearly impossible for me to buy EVERYTHING organic – so I compiled a list of foods that are proven to contain the highest amounts of chemicals, pesticides, and hormones, so that I could buy the organic version whenever possible.
Dairy Products (Milk, Cheese, Yogurt). Cows treated with antibiotics and hormones pass that onto YOU when you consume their products. Organic dairies do not use antibiotics or hormones on their cows.
Apples and Bananas. Even if you wash and peel your regular apples, you can’t get rid of chemical residue on the skin. Bananas are also proven to contain significant amounts of chemicals. Buy organic apples and bananas!
Bell Peppers. These are among one of the most heavily sprayed crops. Avoid them and buy organic.
Strawberries & Cherries. Non-organically grown strawberries and cherries are blasted with pesticides.
Leafy Greens like Lettuces. Avoid non-organic leafy greens, they are heavily sprayed with pesticides.
Grapes, Peaches, and Apricots. More chemically-ridden fruit. Their thin skin does nothing to protect them from contamination.
Celery. Since celery has no protective skin, there is NOTHING keeping the chemicals from getting all over them. Again, choose organic, here too!
Meat. “You are what you eat.” And if your cows, chickens, and pigs eat feed grown with pesticides, those chemicals go into the animal, thus going into YOU when you eat their meat.
Potatoes. Spuds are very high on the list of tainted foods in America.
Tomatoes. Another thin-skinned produce item that pesticides contaminate through and through.
Doesn’t seem to leave much to buy from the non-organic produce section, eh? I have a feeling pretty much any non-organic fruit or vegetable will have had some sort of pesticide exposure – so my rule is to buy organic produce pretty much 100% of the time. Or grow my own!
A great tip I picked up somewhere awhile back that always helps me decide if I should buy an organic product or not, is to ask myself the question: How often do I (or we) eat this? If the answer is “I (We) eat this regularly,” I know I should add it to my priority list of foods to buy organically.
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