Does your grocery shopping include the “dirty dozen?”

As the term “organic” has made it’s way into American households, more and more families are trying to avoid produce that has been made with synthetically compounded fertilizers, pesticides, growth regulators and livestock feed additives. Understanding that organic produce can be more expensive or simply unavailable depending on the item you’re looking for, the Environmental Working Group’s Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce provides a list of the fruits and vegetables that tend to have higher amounts of pesticide residues. This list, aptly named the “dirty dozen,” helps you know which produce items are most important to buy organic.

For example, did you know that apples contain the highest amount of pesticide residues when not purchased organic? Asparagus makes the top of the “Clean Fifteen” list, meaning it’s safer to purchase non-organic if necessary.

See the whole list by visiting the EWG Guide to Pesticides in Produce.

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Photo Credit: Grace Long