Contributing Writers for Wake Up World
Much of the produce that is sold today in supermarkets is supplied from farmers who practice conventional farming methods. In other words, the produce has been grown using chemical fertilizers as well as pesticides and herbicides.
Many scientific studies suggest that the effects of synthetic pesticides can be detrimental to our health; one study suggests that the consumption of pesticides may lead to ADHD in children; in some other cases, exposure can lead to many forms of cancers, infertility problems and birth defects. Along with the many other poor ‘food like’ products we are eating, there is an array of foreign substances that are entering our bodies.
As we expose ourselves to these synthetic substances over the years, our bodies become overloaded, and our ‘cleaning’ mechanisms fail to work. As a result, many of us develop sickness and disease because our bodies cannot efficiently remove these toxins anymore. In order to help give your body a break from this chemical onslaught, we have suggested what foods should be eaten organically. The foods listed below are some of the most toxic to our bodies if eaten from conventional sources. Based the Environment Working Group (EWG), they contain the most pesticides on or in them compared to other foods; so, if you are considering in switching to organic, we would suggest considering the below foods as a first propriety in your transition.
Top 12 Foods You Should Eat Organically (From lowest to highest amount of pesticides)
[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”110028″]
1. Apples: They contain 42 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 42 pesticide residues, there are 7 known carcinogens, 19 suspected hormone disruptors, 10 neurotoxins, 6 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 17 honeybee toxins.
2. Cherries: They contain 42 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 42 pesticide residues, 7 known or probable carcinogens, 22 suspected hormone disruptors, 7 neurotoxins, 8 development or reproductive toxins, and 18 honeybee toxins.
3. Green Beans: They contain 44 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 44 pesticide residues, there are 8 known carcinogens, 22 suspected hormone disruptors, 11 neurotoxins, 8 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 18 honeybee toxins.
4. Collard Greens: They contain 46 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 46 pesticide residues, there are 9 known carcinogens, 25 suspected hormone disruptors, 10 neurotoxins, 8 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 25 honeybee toxins.
5. Spinach: It contains 48 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 48 pesticide residues, there are 8 known carcinogens, 25 suspected hormone disruptors, 8 neurotoxins, 6 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 23 honeybee toxins.
6. Sweet Bell Peppers: They contain 49 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 49 pesticide residues, there are 11 known carcinogens, 26 suspected hormone disruptors, 13 neurotoxins, 10 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 19 honeybee toxins.
7. Lettuce: It contains 51 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 51 pesticide residues, there are 12 known carcinogens, 29 suspected hormone disruptors, 9 neurotoxins, 10 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 21 honeybee toxins.
8. Blueberries: They contain 52 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 52 pesticide residues, there are 8 known carcinogens, 24 suspected hormone disruptors, 14 neurotoxins, 7 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 21 honeybee toxins.
9. Strawberries: They contain 54 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 54 pesticide residues, there are 9 known carcinogens, 24 suspected hormone disruptors,11 neurotoxins, 12 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 19 honeybee toxins.
10. Kale: It contains 55 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 55 pesticide residues, there are 9 known carcinogens, 27 suspected hormone disruptors, 10 neurotoxins, 10 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 23 honeybee toxins.
11. Peaches: They contain 62 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 62 pesticide residues, there are 10 known carcinogens, 29 suspected hormone disruptors, 12 neurotoxins, 11 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 25 honeybee toxins.
12. Celery: It contains the most at 64 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 64 pesticide residues, there are 13 known carcinogens, 31 suspected hormone disruptors, 12 neurotoxins, 14 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 20 honeybee toxins.
Honourable Mentions
Broccoli: It contains 33 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.
Cucumbers: They contain 35 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.
Grapes: They contain 34 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.
Potatoes: They contain 37 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.
Tomatoes: They contain 35 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program
5 Foods that Contain the Lowest Pesticide Residues
Bananas: They contain 12 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 12 pesticide residues, there are 4 known carcinogens, 7 suspected hormone disruptors, 2 neurotoxins, 5 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 2 honeybee toxins.
Grapefruit: It contains 11 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 11 pesticide residues, there are 4 known carcinogens, 4 suspected hormone disruptors, 4 neurotoxins, 4 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 2 honeybee toxins.
Almonds: They contain 9 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 9 pesticide residues, there are 1 known carcinogens, 4 suspected hormone disruptors, 3 neurotoxins, 0 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 4 honeybee toxins.
Asparagus: It contains 9 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 9 pesticide residues, there are 1 known carcinogens, 7 suspected hormone disruptors, 4 neurotoxins, 3 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 5 honeybee toxins.
Onion: It contains 1 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 9 pesticide residues, there are 0 known carcinogens, 0 suspected hormone disruptors, 0 neurotoxins, 0 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 0 honeybee toxins.
When buying produce always consider buying organic. Better yet, to ensure freshness, ensure to buy local as much as you can. When you can buy both local and organic, you can guarantee that the product is both free of pesticides, and full of nutrients. Further to this, you will also avoid any potential foods that may have been genetically modified. To check out pesticide residues on other sources of food, you may visit: whatsonmyfood.org. By substituting the top 12 pesticide laden foods with organic, you can eliminate up to 80% of pesticides from your diet.
Sources: whatsonmyfood.org/index.jsp
[adrotate group=”14″]
About the Authors
Jordan and Kyla are passionate about health; together, they have overcome many illnesses through dietary and lifestyle changes, and the art of practicing a positive mindset daily. Kyla is currently studying to become a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Reiki Master, and Jordan is currently learning about traditional North American medicinal herbs, in hopes of becoming a Certified Herbalist. For more information, please visit the following sites; guidinginstincts.com, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest
This story was also published on GreenMedInfo
[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”110027″]
Here is what sucks – You have a complete list of vegetables here, pretty much everything we eat. So what do we do? Go organic – ok lets go shopping.. unfortunately the cost is triple for everything at a store. What next? Farmer’s market – that would be awesome, except for one small thing. Many of the people who sell fruit at these places are BUYING from the store and putting organic stickers on the fruit!! Don’t believe me – I SAW a neighbor in my home town doing this before he left to go sell. He has been out of work for awhile, so I guess he has to do what he has to do. Point is, we really have to kill this problem at the source.
You know mike I can see that happening. The thing though that you forgot to mention is how do we know that any of the other farmers selling are using pesticides or not for real.
Wouldn’t you rather pay a bit more for real food? Than suffer the ill effects of ingesting pesticides? I’m not sure what the prices are like in the States, I’m Canadian, but here there’s not that big of a difference. I’m not rich, but I’ve made my health my #1 priority, and have sacrificed little things to afford good food. I’ve also started growing my own veggies, living in an apartment it’s not an easy feat, but it’s the easiest way to know where my food comes from.
Do you realize if more people started buying organic, the increase in demand would increase the production thus the competition would drive the prices down. If enough people started voting with their money we could shut down the conventional farmers and put the pesticide companies out of business?
Stand up for what you want! Just remember if you don’t have your health you don’t have anything.
Try growing what you can. Even if it is a little it still helps. Square foot, window sill gardening, vertical gardening are all good if you have limited space.
Killing the problem at source is to grow your own! There is no other way. Arguing and making excuses and pointing out the baddies don’t work!
Yes, prices of organic food are higher.
We switched completely to organic fruits and veggies and still buy a the ordinary supermarket the product that the health store doesn’t have or where we are not that sure that organic is that much better.
The interesting thing: I still spend more in the ordinary supermarket than in the health store? The reason? Products like crisps, nuts, fish, wine, beer and the likes prove to be much bigger part of total spending than fruits and veggies.
And they taste better, so we tend to cook simpler and hence cheaper.
You’re all missing the actual reason for high incidents in cancer/diabetes/heart disease, nerve degenerative diseases, you are all consuming the DNA of flesh; the intricate molecular exchanges (your body speaking to itself) are confused, it doesn’t know what to fight off and what to ingest any more. The actual amounts of any pesticide is far less than the hormones, pesticides etc that livestock passes into the human food chain, habitual consumption of flesh which is not unlike your own; your body ‘thinks’ you’ve had to resort to cannibalism to survive, it’s not adapting to the mass consumption of beef/pork/poultry, your gut was designed for vegetables not pounds of flesh fibre clogging up your ability to even digest the vegetables you try to consume. The average American weight in putrefying meat fibres stuck in the gut at death is 5 – 10 lbs. Organic veges have no hope of reaching your body to make a great difference.
If however you can programme your nervous system to consume organic, then even the smallest quantities of food will sustain a very healthy living. The child that grows on just bananas for instance fails to explain the lack of calcium/proteins/myriad of vitamins we are told we must consume to keep us alive. The less varied but simpler the diet the less your body has to work out what to do with what you’re throwing into it. Simpler is wiser!
Mike- I think there a few things you can do at the farmer’s market that might improve the quality of the produce you get.
1) lower your expectations as to WHAT you want to get that week. i.e. I want to make apple pie, but all they have this week is grapefruit.
2) freshness is key! if the seller is telling you all of these amazing things about there produce and it doesn’t taste good, then stop buying from them.
3) ask questions. Is your produce sustainably grown? Do you use synthetic pesticides? These things matter
Hopefully you can find at least one stand at the market where you build a relationship with the seller and can reliably get good produce from them. If not, check to see if there is another market nearby and start again there.
I can’t afford organic in the supermarkets either. At the farmers markets, some of the sellers claim they don’t know if their stuff is GMO.
Finally I discovered a farm near me that is organic and sells shares in their produce. For a set fee, you can go there every week and get whatever is ready to be eaten.
I also grow some veggies in pots on my porch. It’s not hard at all.,
Exactly! Good on you! i do the same! 🙂
growing our own food as much as possible is what will change this. Organic is becoming more and more accessible and less expensive. My church is developing a community garden to try to help with regional food security. As Thom Hartman says, “get out there, get active…”
http://thebotanyofgrace.blogspot.com/
Exactly! Get out there and get active!
I couldn’t agree with you more and maybe stop arguing about the non-fact that organic food isn’t available in supermarkets and farmer’s markets. It is mostly not true anyway. We can all find a source of healthy food if only we want to.
Pesticides are expensive. I can’t imagine applying 42 different pesticides to anything.
It really beats me why people don’t grow their own when all this info is out and easily accessible!
It is NOT difficult to grow one’s own food where ever we live even underground with modern technology, so it’s just laziness that prevents people from doing it.
But everybody who doesn’t grow their own will have to pay the bill later in form of pain and suffering. Why do people want that???
Claiming that people are just lazy for not growing their own food is disrespectful. Most people struggle to get a minute to themselves these days let alone have time to grow a garden. Depending where you live, it’s not always easy to grow a garden and are limited to things like short growing seasons and many people don’t have the space, you’re assuming most people live in a house with land, which in the cities they don’t. Very rude comment.
Everybody, including you, can grow their own if you want healthy food. There is only one excuse and I’ve mentioned that before. Sorry to be rude, but how about this: My mother said to me more than once: It is your first duty to keep yourself healthy as not to be a burden on your loved ones and society.
As to being rude. What do you think is more rude. Telling somebody to change their lifestyle from unhealthy to healthy or telling somebody that I’m fed up with listening to their yammering.
Again and again and again: Everybody can grow or buy healthy food and anybody who doesn’t is lazy or ignorant. Take your choice.
One good reason that people don’t grow their own is that we have NO CONTROL over the weather manipulation that is going on. I planted a sizeable garden this past spring, then we had three months of nonstop 105+ temperatures and NO RAIN. I watered every day, but plants do not thrive on the chlorine and fluoride that are in our water. My garden burned up, my new blueberries burned up, as did all the local gardens. The people at our farmers market claim they don’t even know what GMOs are .. duh! Folks, I’m afraid the population culling has begun.
I totally agree with you! Population culling has begun many years ago.
I’m sorry to hear about your garden. No rain can happen here in Spain, too. It took me a few years to invent a system of growing vegetables and fruits and even keeping chickens and ducks organically in an adverse climate. It can be done. Please don’t give up, there are alternative growing methods for every season, for every climate and for every purse.
I’ve learned, for example, that the sun and the wind will destroy everything I’ve planted sooner or later. So I built walls and put up netting and yes, I’m bringing in water with my e-bike from the next well if my cistern dries up. It sounds a lot of work, but really it isn’t and I now enjoy healthy food.
Good luck to you, I hope you will find your perfect growing system!
I suppose this info only applies in the USA, what about other countries?
Good question. Certainly some variations, probably to the advantage of Europe and such, but in all cases I suggest that generally, with that kind of NWO crap, what happens in the US is the first shot of what comes next for the rest of us. It just keeps going on and on this way. The States set the basic pattern, they are the blueprint, the test subject.
When you see this kind of data, consider that probably Europe and most of the rest of the world are presently not far back, and/or will reach a similar point in the more or less near future. That’s quite the trend, simply.
Mindy, humans have been omnivores since the beginning of time so I doubt consuming flesh from other animals is the problem. I will agree; however, that the toxic crap going into the animals being consumed by humans does have a negative affect.