Money Is Tight so What Fruits & Veggies Should I Buy Organic & Which Can I Buy Conventionally Grown?

In today’s economy you may be feeling the pinch.  Even if you aren’t, you may be more aware of how much you are spending.  Either that is what is happening to me, or food prices just continue to climb!  Probably both.

But I am a believer in eating organically.  It is a fact that organically grown food has a higher vitamin/mineral content than conventionally grown produce.

Besides that I prefer to eat my fruits & veggies without all the pesticides and insecticides that conventionally grown produce offers you.  If you want to know why it is better to NOT consume these dangerous chemicals – that is a whole other blog!

So what to do when my shopping list is bigger than my budget and I’m out of coupons?  Buy some stuff that isn’t organic.  It doesn’t thrill me but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

What then is the ‘must have’ organic produce?  Which are OK to buy non-organic?

Announcing a new update to an old favorite: it’s the 5th edition of EWG’s classic Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, now with the latest government data. This handy guide shows you the fruits and veggies with the most and least pesticides, so you know which to always buy organic and which are pretty clean even when conventionally grown.

The Full List: 47 Fruits & Veggies

RANK	FRUIT OR VEGGIE	SCORE
1 (worst)	Peach	100 (highest pesticide load)
2	Apple	93
3	Sweet Bell Pepper	83
4	Celery	82
5	Nectarine	81
6	Strawberries	80
7	Cherries	73
8	Kale	69
9	Lettuce	67
10	Grapes – Imported	66
11	Carrot	63
12	Pear	63
13	Collard Greens	60
14	Spinach	58
15	Potato	56
16	Green Beans	53
17	Summer Squash	53
18	Pepper	51
19	Cucumber	50
20	Raspberries	46
21	Grapes – Domestic	44
22	Plum	44
23	Orange	44
24	Cauliflower	39
25	Tangerine	37
26	Mushrooms	36
27	Banana	34
28	Winter Squash	34
29	Cantaloupe	33
30	Cranberries	33
31	Honeydew Melon	30
32	Grapefruit	29
33	Sweet Potato	29
34	Tomato	29
35	Broccoli	28
36	Watermelon	26
37	Papaya	20
38	Eggplant	20
39	Cabbage	17
40	Kiwi	13
41	Sweet Peas – Frozen	10
42	Asparagus	10
43	Mango	9
44	Pineapple	7
45	Sweet Corn – Frozen	2
46	Avocado	1
47 (best)	Onion	1 (lowest pesticide load)

Note: We ranked a total of 47 different fruits and vegetables but grapes are listed twice because we looked at both domestic and imported samples.

GET THE GUIDE

Find out what changed about bananas, carrots, and spinach (among others), and get a printable version of the wallet-sized guide.

Hope this helps you in making decisions when shopping!

To Your Health!

www.GreenLifeSaver.net

Milk … Why Your Kids Don’t Want to Drink it. Are They On to Something?

My daughter would NOT drink milk from about 4 years old until last year at 11.

Did her taste buds change – No, not really.

Before getting into learning about health – I tried to give her regular, pasteurized skim milk. It is said to be healthy for her, but she would not drink it (except to put on her cereal and throw what was left away after eating).

It didn’t really make sense to me since she was not a finicky eater and she ate just about any vegetable I put in front of her and she loved fruit. So why wouldn’t she drink this healthy drink? What was the problem?

Maybe (as most kids do) she instinctively knew what her body needed. What I found after researching milk was that pasteurized, homogenized milk is NOT ‘healthy’ as advertised. Even though some of the stars look kind of cute with the white mustache and the slogan “GOT MILK?”

So what changed at 11 years old that she began drinking it?

I gave her raw milk. One sip, then she finished the glass, then she asked for more!

Where did I get it? At – Sunset View Pastures Farm, an Amish farm in Cochranville, PA. They are located at –

Steve and Katie Stoltzfus
751 Saw Mill Road
Cochranville, PA 19330

610-299-6726

Not only do they have the most amazingly delicious dairy, eggs, and beef products, they are wonderfully friendly and knowledgeable.

How did I find them? Online on www.LocalAmishFarms.com

It is a site dedicated to farms, and farmer markets in the Southeastern Pennsylvania area that offer locally raised, organic and pesticide-free produce, dairy, meats.

I know, if this is new to you, you might be thinking that can’t be safe, or that has to be fattening, if it was so much better for you, than why is there only pasteurized, homogenized milk in the grocery store?

I know, I wondered that as well.

Safety – There are many sites out there that talk about the differences between raw and pasteurized milk. The main consensus is this – raw milk from organic grass fed cows in a cleanly facility is better than pasteurized milk.

Why? Because pasteurized milk is heated which kills all bacteria (the good and bad) leaving it without the digestive enzymes, and nutrients that are the ‘good’ for you part. Here is a blurb from a Dr. Mercola newsletter on raw milk –

While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns that raw milk can carry disease-causing bacteria, what they completely overlook is the fact that these bacteria are the result of industrial farming practices that lead to diseased animals, which may then in turn produce contaminated milk. You never want to get your raw milk from a feed-lot cow.

Drinking raw milk produced by grass-fed cows from clean, well-run farms, however, is far LESS dangerous than drinking pasteurized milk.

In fact, not only does raw milk contain good bacteria that are essential for a healthy digestive system, raw milk also offers protection against disease-causing bacteria!

The big determining factor about the safety of milk is what the cows are fed and the facility it is produced at. I found this youtube video at another great informative site – www.raw-milk-facts.com.

As nature does in making things with a purpose, raw milk fat actually has multiple purposes – like assisting with the absorption of calcium, and in Dr. Mercola’s newsletter he says that it also assists in the development of muscle and supporting the thyroid.

Check out all three of these sites to learn more about the benefits of raw milk! It really is eye opening … then you can make your assumption on why most groccery stores only offer pasturized milk.

I will continue to drive to the Sunset View Pasture’s Farm to get my milk, eggs, and more.

I can now say that my daughter loves her milk!