I recently heard about Container Gardening for Health: The 12 Most Important Fruits and Vegetables for Your Organic Garden, a book that covers the most important crops to grow organically based on the “Dirty Dozen” list. This is a list created by The Environmental Working Group that tells consumers which fruits and veggies are best and least important to buy organic. The EPA just updated the list in spring of 2009, so this book which came out also in the spring contains the most current Dirty Dozen info.

I like the idea, because not only are the Dirty Dozen list items …read more

Organic foods are surrounded by what may seem like a lot of hype – and some of it is. Green is the new black, so food companies that hop on the bandwagon can expect to benefit, but that doesn’t mean consumers always reap the rewards. Following are some facts you should know about organic foods.

HYPE: If you don’t buy everything organic, your whole family will suffer needlessly from pesticide exposure.
Buying everything in organic form is not for the faint of heart or short of cash. Organics can be pricey and making all those decisions about which organics are best is …read more

If you’re not familiar with the “Dirty Dozen” – it’s a list created by The Environmental Working Group that lets consumers know which fruits and veggies are best and least important to buy organic. The dirty dozen are fruits and veggies that have a larger amount of pesticides in them when grown conventionally.

The group just released their newest version of the list and it’s available for download (handy for shopping trips).
This year the five worst conventional produce buys are…

Peaches
Apples
Bell Peppers
Celery
Nectarines

And the five safest conventional produce buys are…

Onions
Avocados
Sweet Corn
Pineapples
Mangos

How to use the list …read more