Organic Produce versus Agrichemical Produce

Last Saturday I dropped by our local farmers market in Calabasas for fresh produce.  I had missed shopping at the farmers market for the last few weeks and was pleasantly surprised to see a bigger presence of US certified organic farmers.  More importantly there were a couple hundred shoppers buying fresh organic produce, eggs and beef.  Even at our local Ralphs super market, the organic section in produce has grown from a tiny section of vegetables and fruits just a  few months ago to a triple tiered section that is about 25 feet long offering 46 different organic vegetables and fruits.  Trader Joes, another food store chain is also offering a growing variety of organic produce and less agrichemical produce.

Later in the week, I was in the Ralphs produce section looking for on sale organic strawberries.  Also looking at the strawberries was a fellow who was in his 40s who asked me if I liked organic strawberries.  I said, “Absolutely as I believe the health risks of conventional grown strawberries are significant.”  He said, “Yeah I know that, but do the organic strawberries taste better?”  I thought for a moment and said, “Do you remember how strawberries tasted as a child?”  He face lit up as he recalled eating berries as a child.  I said, “Well that’s how organic strawberries taste to me.   They remind me of my summer strawberry picking days when strawberries were ripe and sweet.  Conventional strawberries have a distinctive chemical taste, and an artificial long shelf life.”

What are the known risks of eating produce conventionally grown aside from some taste differences?  Conventionally grown produce is culitivated with agrichemicals in the form of synthetic pesticides, and fungicides which contaminate the produce, air, soil and our ground water.   Conventional farming is really synthetic chemical farming.   If conventionally grown, the seeds may have been genetically modified (GMOs).  The effects of eating GMO foods are unknown but yet 90% of corn and soy in the US are GMOs.  Being exposed to pesticides has been associated with the development of Parkinson’s, ADHD, neurological and developmental disorders, reproductive diseases and cancer.  Many pesticides act as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs).  These EDCs imitate or block hormonal responses causing thyroid, diabetes, endocrine disorders as well as autoimmune, metabolic disruption and cancer.

Fruits and vegetables that are USA certified organic are grown with controlled use of organic pesticides, fungicides and are not from GMO seeds.  When you go to the market, should you be buying organic fruits and vegetables?  The short answer it depends on which fruit or vegetable we are talking about.  We now have the EWG (Environmental Working Group) www.ewg.org/foodnews who have independently tested our most common vegetables and fruits.  The surprising results are that pesticide residues are not just on the outside or skin of our produce, but the pesticides are throughout the produce.  Most of these pesticides can’t be washed off.

Do you know about the Dirty Dozen?  This is the top twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetable of about 50 that were tested by EWG.  The biggest surprise to me was that the number one most contaminated food is apples.  92% of conventional apples contained 2 or more pesticide residues.  The second most contaminated produce was celery.  A single celery sample was contaminated with 13 different chemicals and 96% of celery tested was found to have pesticides.  Strawberries had the distinction of the being the third most contaminated.  A single sample of strawberries had 13 different pesticides.    Item four of the dirty dozen were peaches.  85.6 percent of conventional peaches were contaminated.  The rest of the Dirty Dozen  in order of most contaminated were conventionally grown spinach, imported nectarines, imported grapes, sweet bell peppers, potatoes, domestic blueberries, lettuce and kale/ collard greens.

There is some good news in all of this, in addition to the Dirty Dozen there is a second group of fruits and vegetables grown conventionally that are known as the  Clean Fifteen.   The Clean Fifteen had the lowest levels of pesticides.   You can lower your overall pesticide intake by selectively eating the Dirty Dozen only as organic and eating conventional grown Clean Fifteen.  The Clean Fifteen are onions, sweet corn, pineapples, avocado, asparagus, sweet peas, mangoes, eggplant, domestic cantaloupe, kiwi, cabbage, watermelon, sweet potatoes, grapefruit and mushrooms.

Below is a shopping list to help you avoid the Dirty Dozen and identify the Clean Fifteen for purchase.