a beautiful journey home: "Clean 15" and the "Dirty Dozen"

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) did a study that came out last year. They tested 50 different fruits and vegetables for their levels of pesticide contamination. From that study came EWG's two lists - the "Clean 15" list with the 15 fruits/veggies that are least contaminated and, therefore, not as important to buy organic - and the "Dirty Dozen" - the 12 most contaminated fruits/veggies...if you can only eat organically some of the time, these are the foods to make sure to choose organic over conventionally grown.

So here are the two lists. Many of you already know about them, but for those who don't - voila! Get to know them. Print them out. Have them in your wallet or purse for grocery store runs.

And keep in mind that, although the Clean 15 list tells you what foods are least harmful conventionally, that just means that the pesticides don't easily leech into the part of the fruit/veggie that you're eating - it doesn't mean that the farmers aren't using large amounts of pesticides (which is bad for the groundwater and the planet). Clean 15 just means a lesser evil. But for those of us who aren't going 100% organic in the produce section right now, it gives a direction and a focus. And in the (sometimes overwhelming) world of Green, I say "YAY!" to that. And, if buying anything organic feels out of your price range right now, then the Clean 15 can be your Happy Place. Eat things on this list as much as possible and things from the Dirty Dozen list as little as possible.