Ok, I’ll admit, it’s been awhile since my last post.
But with Blaze and looking for a job, I’ve been a bit preoccupied. (Though I have to admit, playing Mr. Mom for the last few months has been pretty fun.)
Anywho, I was chastised the other day for not feeding Blaze organic-only products. My response was “eh, it’s corn/sweet potato, they’re not one of the dirty dozen.” The person looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.
For those of you, (like the person that I was talking with,) that don’t know, the FDA puts out a list of the “Dirty Dozen” vegetables that are the ones that are most likely to retain herbicides/pesticides and therefore are the ones that you need to replace with organic if you’re going to. (It’s said that you can reduce your pesticide/herbicide intake by 80% by replacing just the dirty dozen with organic.)
You can find the Dirty Dozen and the “Clean Fifteen” here.
Believe it or not, washing and peeling the produce doesn’t help all that much. Most pesticides/herbicides are absorbed into the plant, and therefore the fruit or vegetable. (However, if you don’t wash them, then you’re actually getting higher than average amounts of pesticides than the vegi’s that are tested. That’s because all of the tested produce was washed thoroughly prior to testing… believe it or not.)
So, if you don’t want to buy “all organic” don’t worry, you don’t have to. Just make sure that the ones you do buy conventionally are off the “Clean 15” list.
Till next time!
-D