Not everyone has the money or the time to buy everything organic. But that doesn’t mean you deserve contaminated fruit and veggies. Before you go to the shop and buy your food, it has traveled a long way before ending up on the supermarket shelves. The production process is geared towards the fast delivery of huge amounts of food whilst the slower, natural growing process is seen as counterproductive. The use of chemicals and pesticides is the ‘collateral damage’ that accompanies the need for quick and bugfree veggies and fruit. As a result not a lot of the essential nutrients remain. In order for you to know which vegetables and fruit contain a lot of harmful pesticides and which ones don’t, The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has developed a ‘Dirty Dozen’ list and a ‘Clean Fifteen’ list.

The Dirty Dozen

Here are the twelve most contaminated veggies and fruit you can find. They have a huge variety of harmful pesticides and in 99% of the test cases, they found at least one type of pesticide. If you can’t imagine a life without them, don’t worry! Just finish reading this post and you’ll find out how to keep them in your diet.
Here they are *Jaws music appears out of nowhere*:

The Clean Fifteen

These fifteen fabulous fruit and vegetables are the cleanest ones out there. The avocados take the trophy home considering they only contain 1% of pesticides.
The other fourteen are the following:

Sweet corn                           Papayas
Pineapples                            Kiwis
Cabbage                               Eggplant
Frozen sweet peas               Grapefruit
Onions                                  Cantaloupe
Asparagus                            Cauliflower
Sweet potatoes                    Mangoes

But what if life is just not worth it without peaches and potatoes?

Then you need to put a little bit of effort into it! Luckily you don’t need to do a lot. You just have to wash your veggies and fruit with a mix of distilled white vinegar and water. 10% of vinegar and 90% of water should do the trick. Then you let them soak in it for at least 15 to 20 minutes. If you don’t like the touch of vinegar, just replace it by using lemon juice and some salt water. Afterwards rinse your vegetables and fruit with clean, normal water. Take a look at the water/mixture after soaking your food in it. It will be dirtier than before and on the bottom you will find filth!

So go on and be a pesticide magician. Make it disappear so you can really eat healthy! Because in the end, you are what you eat.

Regards,

The NutraVita Team