According to Dr. Chensheng (Alex) Lu, Associate Professor of Environmental Exposure Biology at the Harvard School of Public Health, reducing pesticides in your diet is critical to reducing the toxic effects of pesticide exposure for you and your family. In a video Dr. Lu states that most pesticides come from our foods and those pesticides can be minimized by eating organic or at least removing the dirty dozen conventional produce which are highest in pesticides from our diets. He conducted a study that measured the toxic levels of pesticides in the urine of young children consuming a diet of conventionally grown produce. The children were then put on a week of organically grown produce and retested for pesticides. The pesticides found in the first sample of urine were undetectable after only one week eating organically grown fruits and vegetables.
Here is a list of the dirty dozen fruits and vegetables. If you like these foods look for the organically grown versions.
Apples
Celery
Cucumber
Cherry tomatoes
Grapes
Chili peppers
Kale
Collard greens
Potato
Summer squash
Sweet bell pepper
Spinach
Conventionally grown produce with the least pesticides are:
Asparagus
Cantaloupe
Avocado
Sweet Corn
Mangos
Mushrooms
Onions
Papayas
Pineapple
Sweet peas
Sweet potato
Corn is a known GMO food so it is not a bad idea to look for organically grown corn. GMO foods are usually higher in pesticides. Soon enough we will hopefully be able to identify our produce with a non GMO verified labels. Remember to identify organic foods as certified organic http://www.ota.com/organic/faq.html and non GMO’s as verified non GMO http://www.nongmoproject.org/find-non-gmo/search-participating-products/ labels.
Making these small changes is a great health plan to follow.