Which of over 16 fruits and vegetables to get organic....

Today's Post: Monday, 6-24-2011

People who eat whole fruits and many kinds of vegetables have much better health than people who don’t.

This is regardless of if they are otherwise vegetarian or prefer lowfat or low carb eating.

It’s almost as important as NOT smoking.

All of the ways of eating that have great health track records include eating whole fruits and many kinds of vegetables. And, even the best ones provide better results if you eat whole fruits and many kinds of vegetables MORE than most of the people who eat that way!

Some fruits and vegetables are almost OK to eat if from sources that aren’t organic.

For some fruits and vegetables, though, it’s a good idea to pass most of the time on sources that aren’t organic and to make a strong, special effort to only buy them organic or eat them less often.

This is my version of the lists taken from www.ewg.org , the Environmental Working Group.

1. Here’s the list that is possibly OK to eat from nonorganic sources. Five of the eight are superfoods.

The five superfoods are:

onions,
avocado,
sweet potatoes or yams,
kiwifruit,
and cabbage.

Each of those has multiple health benefits!

(Cabbage, I’d prefer to be organic since lettuce and kale etc are on the should be organic only list. And, peeled kiwifruit may be better than eating the peel. Or it may be OK if kiwifruit usually is organic due to it not needing to be sprayed or where it’s grown.) Onions, avocado, and sweet potatoes or yams have peels or outsides that are discarded.

Here are the other three they list in this group. Asparagus, sweet peas, and cantaloupe. Sweet peas and cantaloupe have peels or outsides that are discarded. Asparagus grows so well on its own it may not need spraying.
(However, cantaloupe can have salmonella on the outside. So BEFORE you cut into it, wash it thoroughly twice and wash your hands too.)

2. Here are 12 foods to make a special effort to buy and eat only the organic versions.

A. Apples (Apples often have the pesticides etc sealed in with wax, and the peel is the most nutritious part.), celery, blueberries, strawberries, peaches and nectarines, grapes from outside the United States, spinach, collard greens, kale, and lettuce, bell peppers (With the red and yellow bell peppers this is so much so, they should be eaten very seldom.), and potatoes.

Potatoes are extra important to only eat from organic sources for many reasons.

And, like apples, the skin is often most treated with pesticide but has much of the nutrition.

I read that some potato growers will only eat organic potatoes themselves since they know how much “conventionally grown” potatoes – including their own, have had done to them.

In addition, potatoes without the skin are made into some to the most fattening snacks made -- by actual surveys of the results.

Besides that, eating cooked potatoes without the skin tends to be as high glycemic as refined grains or white rice – and more than sugar!

So, eating only the organic potatoes means you’ll eat less, which is likely a wise idea.

B. But the celery, blueberries, strawberries, collard greens, kale, and peaches and nectarines are all superfoods nutritionally.

What to do?

One solution I’ve found is that Whole Foods carries most to all of these foods from organic growers!

Even better, in many cases the organic version is as inexpensive as the nonorganic versions there!

Nice!