Produce Safety Guide

Organic food often comes at a premium price, thus hardly anyone can afford to buy all organic produces all the time. We have to limit organic purchases to the most important items for our family, such as milk, or buy the produce with least pesticide contamination more often.

Apples, cherries, peaches / nectarines, pears, strawberries and grapes are among the most likely fruits to be contaminated with pesticide residues, so buy organic as often as you can. Bell pepper, carrot, celery, kale, and lettuce are among the most likely vegetables to contain pesticides. Buy them less often or buy organic ones.

Kiwi, mango, papaya, pineapple, and watermelon are the fruits with lowest pesticide residues, so you can buy them more often with less concern. Same for the following vegetables such as asparagus, avocado, broccoli, cabbage, eggplant, onion, sweet corn, sweet peas, sweet potato, and tomato. GREAT! All except papaya and tomato are my favorites. I wish I would take this list with me to the grocery shopping as a reminder.

In between the above mentioned produce with medium pesticide residues are banana, cantaloupe, cranberries, grapefruit, honeydew melon, orange, plum, raspberries, and tangerine for fruits, and cauliflower, cucumber, green beans, pepper, potato, mushrooms, spinach, summer/winter squash for vegetables.