Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen - Making Informed Choices About Organic Food

Ever head of the dirty dozen? How about the clean fifteen? If you haven't heard either of  these terms, I am still certain you've heard the word organic, and you've probably wondered if buying organic is worth the price. While I can't exactly answer that question for you since it's a personal decision that you must make for yourself based on your opinion and finances, I can tell you what I know about the topic, and I can tell you how I decide if/when I will buy organic.

There has been a lot of research linking pesticides (not only in food but also in cleaning supplies, pest control, etc.) to various diseases that are normally associated with aging, such as various types of cancer, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, and it has also been linked to infertility (especially in men). The link with infertility shows that it isn't just based on what that man ate/was exposed to, but what his mother ate/was exposed to while pregnant with him. I'm not going to discuss this much more since there is already a ton of information about this out there, but I put a couple of links near the bottom of this post that have more information about the health effects of pesticides.

Okay, moving on to the decision of how/when to buy organic.  

If you search for the dirty dozen or the clean fifteen you will find many different lists. The tricky part is that these lists will not be the same. So we really might be working with a dirty 17 and a clean 18, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it. For this post I chose to use the Environmental Working Group's lists. To form these lists they collected data from the USDA and FDA who had done testing for pesticide levels on 47 different types of produce, and then ranked the produce based on the pesticide levels that were found on them. I used the EWG's dirty dozen and clean fifteen lists, but I also added a few other produce items below each list (with question marks) that I found elsewhere on the internet. These lists were made in 2015 with the most recent data, so you could even find a different EWG list from a previous year with different items, which is where a couple of my add-ons came from.

Dirty Dozen:

1. Apples
2. Peaches
3. Nectarines
4. Strawberries
5. Grapes
6. Celery
7. Spinach/kale/collard greens
8. Bell peppers
9. Cucumbers
10. Cherry tomatoes
11. Snap peas
12. Potatoes

Carrots?

Lettuce?

Hot peppers?

Cherries?

Blueberries?

Clean Fifteen:

1. Avocado
2. Frozen sweet corn
3. Pineapple
4. Cabbage
5. Frozen peas
6. Onions
7. Asparagus
8. Mango
9. Papaya
10. Kiwi
11. Eggplant
12. Grapefruit
13. Cantaloupe
14. Cauliflower
15. Sweet potatoes

Broccoli?

Bananas?

Watermelon?

I can't say I buy everything on the dirty list organic all the time. That doesn't always fit in my budget, it isn't always available, and though I'm not concerned about blemishes on potato skin, sometimes the organic produce just doesn't look that good. I have also chosen to buy organic for all of my dairy products, eggs, peanut butter (and peanuts), beef, and when the budget allows, other meat as well, therefore, produce is where I have to pick and choose.

Here are the items I always (when available) buy organic:
Apples
Carrots
Kale
Strawberries (as often as budget allows)
Spinach (as often as budget allows)
Cherry tomatoes (as often as budget allows)

When I can fit organic blueberries, peaches, celery (or anything else I'm buying for  that matter) into the budget, I'll definitely buy it, but that usually isn't the case.

The only items on the clean list that I tend to buy organic are bananas and broccoli. The main reason for that is just that we eat a lot of them, so I figure that even if they were lower on the list, there are still pesticides present.

Another reason I love Trader Joe's is because they often have great prices on organic products. Apples, peanut butter (though I usually buy this at Target since their price is a bit lower), ground beef, and carrots are a few of my best finds. Their carrots are less per pound than I would pay for conventional carrots elsewhere! In that case there's no reason not to buy organic.

If you don't already use your grocery store's sale flyer and look around for coupons, this could definitely help the financial aspect of buying organic.

Here on the World's Healthiest Foods site there is more information about what is required for a food to be organic, when and why organic came about, and there are links at the bottom of that page which lead you to even more information if you're looking for it. I love the World's Healthiest Foods site! They have so much great information.

This site also talks more about the potential negative health effects of pesticides (not only in food but also in cleaning products, pest control, etc.) on a developing fetus, a growing child, and the elderly from life-long exposure as briefly discussed above.

This post is not intended to scare people into buying organic food. The point is to help you make informed choices about your food, and to answer some questions you may have had about why organic matters and what you should prioritize. I don't want people developing orthorexia over this (which is basically a disorder in which you are so obsessed about eating healthy that you are unhealthy....it's a real thing).

If you can't afford organic, don't freak out about eating your non-organic apple, because you'll probably be worse off from panicking about it than you would have been from eating an organic piece of cake.