Organic vs. Conventional Produce

Although eating conventional produce is better than not getting enough fruits and vegetables in your diet, there are many items that you really should strive to ONLY buy organic. If you're juicing daily, you're consuming a lot more produce than you probably had previously. That's great, but if you're consuming non-organic produce that also means you're ingesting more pesticides, fertilizers and fungicides. That's not good.

The Environmental Working Group has two lists that they publish, known as the "Dirty Dozen" and the "Clean 15." You guessed it, items on the "dozen" list should only be purchased when organic is available, as they contained the highest levels of pesticides. The "clean" items you don't need to worry about as much. EWG's web site has updates these lists here.

The current "Dirty Dozen" (and the top three are the worst offenders):

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Strawberries
4. Peaches
5. Spinach
6. Nectarines (imported)
7. Grapes (imported)
8. Sweet bell peppers
9. Potatoes
10. Blueberries (domestic)
11. Lettuce
12. Kale and collard greens

(Although not on this list, I still only buy organic carrots as well.)

The current "Clean 15":

1. Onions
2. Sweet corn
3. Pineapple
4. Avocado
5. Asparagus
6. Sweet peas
7. Mangoes
8. Eggplant
9. Cantaloupe (domestic)
10. Kiwi
11. Cabbage
12. Watermelon
13. Sweet potatoes
14. Grapefruit
15. Mushrooms