Are you eating the most pesticide produce? In order to answer that you have to look at the produce, you and your family are consuming on the daily basis. We put together a list of the top 12 fruits and veggies you should always buy organic, as well as the top 15 that have little to no pesticides which can be bought as non-organic.
Let’s face it, organic foods can be pricey, especially when you have a lot of mouths to feed. So, in order to feed your family as healthy a diet as possible, you may have to buy organic based on priority. Foods you eat the most and those that typically contain the most pesticides.
The Dirty Dozen You Should Buy Organic
- Strawberries
- Spinach
- Nectarines
- Apples
- Peaches
- Pears
- Cherries
- Grapes
- Celery
- Tomatoes
- Sweet bell peppers
- Potatoes
To give you an idea of the number of pesticides in some of these foods, more than 98 percent of the samples of cherries, apples, spinach, strawberries, peaches and nectarines tested positive for at least one pesticide. Strawberries contain 20 different pesticides, and by weight, spinach typically has twice as many pesticides than any other crop.
The Clean 15 That Can be Bought Non-Organic
This is a list of fruits and veggies that contain the least amount of pesticides and are OK to not buy organic.
- Sweet corn
- Avocados
- Pineapples
- Cabbage
- Onions
- Sweet peas frozen
- Papayas
- Asparagus
- Mango
- Eggplant
- Honeydew melon
- Kiwi
- Cantaloupe
- Cauliflower
- Grapefruit
In general, avocados and sweet corn are the cleanest with only one percent of the samples tested had detectable pesticides. And more than 80 percent of onions, asparagus, pineapples, papayas, and cabbage had no pesticide residue.