What Foods Need to be Organic?

If you'd like to buy organic food but can't always afford it, I can help you choose where to invest your hard-earned money. The following is a list of food that typically contain the most pesticides:



1. Meat - Chicken, beef and pork are fed chemicals and hormones. It's very difficult and expensive to find organic meat so it's best to just limit it altogether. Beef is especially contaminated and no amount of cooking will get rid of pesticides and hormones. Beef is also the number one consumer of water and energy in the food world. It's healthy for you and the planet to do your best to avoid it.



2. Milk - Milk has the same problems as meat. However, it's much easier to find organic milk. For those of you who are lactose intolerant, organic soy milk is an excellent alternative.



3. Coffee - Not only do coffee beans absorb a lot of pestisides but the typical coffee plantation uses precious land where trees have been cut down leaving local wildlife nowhere to live. You can choose to buy shade grown coffee which is grown under a canopy of trees.



4. Peaches - Peaches have a very delicate, fuzzy skin that makes pesticides easily absorbed. If you aren't eating organic peaches, you're ingesting approximately fourteen different pesticides. ICK!



5. Apples - According to The Daily Green on msn.com, "Scrubbing and peeling a fruit doesn't eliminate chemical residue completely so it's best to buy organic when it comes to apples. Organic apples taste sweeter than conventionally grown, too."



6. Peppers - If you thought peaches had a lot of pesticides, watch out for peppers. They are commonly sprayed with forty different pesticides that seep right into their thin skin.



7. Celery - The fibrous nature of celery means no amount of scrubbing will wash away the pesticides.



8. Strawberries - All those little seeds on the surface of a strawberry are like little pores just soaking up the pesticides sprayed on crops every day.



9. Lettuce - Again, the thin, basically non-existent skin absorbs everything. And since bugs love lettuce, farmers use tons of pesticides.



10. Grapes - The pesticides penetrate grape skins and get trapped inside the watery center and stay there until you chew it up.



11. Potatoes - Not only do potatoes contain pesticides but you also have to worry about fungicides that are added to the soil the spuds grow in.



12. Tomatoes - Like grapes, tomatoes have thin skin that absorb pesticides which then get trapped in the watery center.



If this list hasn't convinced you to buy organic, take a look at this quote from Sara Snow, Discovery Network's own eco-expert:



"Studies show that organic produce actually tastes better, but there are other reasons for it as well. If all Americans would buy just 10% organic foods, 98 million daily servings of drinking water would be free of pesticides, 20 million daily servings of milk would be produced without antibiotics and growth hormones, 53 million servings of fruits and vegetables would be free of synthetic pesticide resides (that’s enough for 10 million kids to get their five-a-day) and it would eliminate the need for almost 3 billion barrels of imported oil annually (that’s equal to 406,000 Olympic swimming pools). Start by buying even just 2% organic and work your way up from there."