Green Living: Clean Food

Green Living is a subject I've been engaged in for a very long time. While I know this is a trendy topic now and a lot of people are trying to get on the band wagon and convince you they are "experts", little seems to be available to really help you if you are outside an urban center with lots of resources or in some tropical location.

If you can't afford going organic there are things you can do, and be healthy. This suggestion comes from a newsletter I receive, and yes peeling food is a helpful process.

Better yet, make a donation to our non-profit organization and receive a copy of our food cleaning 'Healthy Handout'(c)

Youll learn how you don't need to purchase veggie wash products, but how you can make your own and use it to clean a wide array of foods, more than fruits and vegetables.

"If you can't afford organic produce, you can still enjoy great health. If you can't buy organic produce, I would still encourage you to buy non-organic fruits and vegetables and enjoy a full array of different types.

However, I'd also recommend taking some additional steps with the non-organic produce that you purchase. It would be important to wash your non-organic fruit and vegetables well, using a natural bristle brush to lightly scrub the surface, so that you can remove some of the pesticide residues that may be present.

You may also want to peel conventionally grown cucumbers, eggplant, potatoes, and apples. This peeling recommendation is due to two factors. First, the outermost surfaces of fruits and vegetables may be the most affected by pesticide spraying. Second, the above types of produce often have petroleum-based wax coatings that may work against your best health. (The situation with the peeling of non-organic produce is exactly opposite from the situation with organic fruits and vegetables. With organic produce, you almost always want to keep the peels and skins intact because they are among the most nutrient-rich parts of any food.)

Do you have a farmer's market near you? If so, you may want to buy your produce there. Even if the produce you find there is not certified organic, chances are that it may contain less pesticide residues than produce available in larger grocery stores that do not focus on locally grown foods. Many small farmers don't go through the process of organic certification but still grow their produce with minimal, if any, agricultural chemicals."

In 2006, the Environmental Working Group released an updated report that identified foods in the conventional, non-organic food supply that contained the highest number of pesticide residues. The worst offenders, which were nicknamed the "dirty dozen," include:

# Apples
# Bell peppers
# Celery
# Cherries
# Grapes (imported, especially grapes from South American countries)
# Lettuce
# Nectarines
# Peaches
# Pears
# Potatoes
# Spinach
# Strawberries

EWG released an updated version of their report "Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce" in 2006 in which they reported on pesticide residues found on 43 popular fresh fruits and vegetables. This report was based upon an analysis of over 100,000 U.S. government pesticide test results. The following are the 12 fruits and vegetables that they found least likely to have concentrated pesticide residues:

# Asparagus
# Avocados
# Bananas (fungicides are used in Bananas, NHN note)
# Broccoli
# Cabbage
# Corn (frozen)
# Kiwi
# Mangoes
# Onions
# Papaya
# Pineapple
# Sweet peas (frozen)

And from our main domain, posted since the early 1990s -

- from Citizen Petition.
When you eat bananas, melons, or oranges from the supermarket you are ingesting ethyl alcohol, isopropanol, oxidized polyethylene, shellac, propylene glycol, silicone, and sulfur dioxide.
When you eat tomatoes, avocado, peaches, and plums, you are ingesting 2-6-dichloro-4-nitroaniline, botran, ammonia compounds, and dimethylpolyoxane. (see www.garynull.com for information on aniline containing substances)
When you eat sweet potatoes, onions, parsnips, and beets you ingest fungicides imazilil, benomyl, and thiabenzadole. These substances are cancer causing as well as sources of birth defects, mutations, and immune system damage. They cannot be removed by peeling and are used to allow longer shelf life (not fresher or safer food).THE TRUTH ABOUT FOOD WAX