Green Daily

To back up for a minute, here's the scoop: The Environmental Working Group (EWG) puts out an annual list of the 12 fruits and vegetables that have the highest levels of pesticide contamination when grown with industrial farming methods. They (and pretty much everyone else now) recommend that you buy these organically grown whenever possible:

DIRTY DOZEN
(Buy These Organic)

1. Peaches
2. Apples
3. Sweet Bell Peppers
4. Celery
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Lettuce
9. Grapes
10. Pears
11. Spinach
12. Potatoes

On a more positive note, they also list the produce with the lowest levels of pesticides, so in other words you can get away with not buying these organic if you're trying to save a little money:

CLEANEST 12
(Lowest in Pesticides)

1. Onions
2. Avocado
3. Sweet Corn (frozen)
4. Pineapples
5. Mango
6. Sweet Peas (frozen)
7. Asparagus
8. Kiwi
9. Bananas
10. Cabbage
11. Broccoli
12. Eggplant


Thanks to the Care2 Healthy & Green newsletter for the nice clear list. And so now that you have the list, how do you remember it? Here's my pnemonic for the Dirty Dozen:

Pretty Amanda pursues cats, nearly stampeding cows lovingly grazing precious sunflower petals.

I know, it's pretty bad. If that's not going to work for you, do what I did and download the iPhone app from EWG so you can just check when you're in the grocery store. Better living through technology!