I mentioned that ideally you want to be consuming organic fruit and vegetables to avoid eating herbicides and pesticides.
Pesticides are known to be toxic to the nervous system, cause many kinds of cancer (especially among farm workers using pesticides), disrupt hormones and have been linked to autism and ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) in children.
Children both born and unborn are particularly sensitive to chemicals.
However, you are now armed with your list of the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen. But the supermarket may not stock or may have run out of organic fruits and vegetables when you go shopping.
Let’s look at ways of washing some of the chemicals off our foods if organic is not available.
To expand on our list of heavily sprayed foods a little more:
- Spinach
- Cucumbers
- Imported snap peas
- Potatoes
- Blueberries
- Kale / Collard Greens
A few more to add to our clean group are:
- Grapefruit
- Cantaloupe
- Cauliflower
- Sweet potatoes
So you have bought non-organic apples and bell peppers and want to wash some of the residue of the pesticides off. How do you do this?
Soaking fruit and vegetables in a solution of 1-part white distilled vinegar/organic apple vinegar / lemon juice and 3-parts water will break down the oily residue and wash some of it off. You want to soak vegetables and hard fruit for around 15 minutes and soft fruit and berries for only a few minutes so as not to compromise the taste.
Bear in mind that you are only washing some of the chemical residue off the food. Some is absorbed into the skin. So if you want your apple to be completely pesticide-free you will need to peel the skin off. With berries you can’t peel them, so best to buy organic if you can.
