Healthy tidbits

I thought the following article very interesting from 'Martha Stewart Living';

Food Safety
Pesticide residue is part of the equation, especially if you're feeding young children, whose systems are less developed and may be more sensitive to toxins than adults'. The EWG, a nonprofit environmental research organization, calls the 12 fruits and vegetables that carry the most pesticide residue "the dirty dozen." These include (in order of most residue to least): peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots, and pears.

The EWG's "clean 15," the fruits and vegetables with the least pesticide residue, are (in order of least residue to most): onions, avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, mangoes, asparagus, sweet peas, kiwifruits, cabbages, eggplants, papayas, watermelons, broccoli, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes. Grapefruit is number 16. Oranges and tangerines, staples of midwinter, fall midway on the list of the 47 fruits and vegetables tested.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says organic is cleaner but takes care to point out that "measured residues on most products, both organic and nonorganic, do not exceed government-defined thresholds for safe consumption."

When it comes to foodborne illness, organic isn't immune, as the 2006 outbreak of E. coli in organic bagged spinach proved. Contamination is all about who or what touches the produce along the way. Distribution of mass-produced foods will spread a tainted batch far and wide, while small farms have a narrower reach. Organic food can't be irradiated, a controversial technique approved to kill pathogens in some foods, or genetically modified, a practice whose long-term safety is unknown.

Cost
Organic is still more expensive than conventional produce, for the most part because many of the farms are small and the farming methods are labor-intensive. Wholesale prices tracked by the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit organic-research group, vary widely from market to market. Organic acorn squash, for example, costs 20 percent more than conventional in Seattle but about 200 percent more in Boston.

If you have limited dollars to spend on organics, devote them to organic varieties of the EWG's "dirty dozen." You'll get the most pesticide-free bang for your buck. You can also save by buying conventional varieties of "the clean 15." (The lists are available at foodnews.org/walletguide.php and can be downloaded as an iPhone application.)

From Martha Stewart Living, January 2010