Dirty Dozen

This week The Environmental Working Group released the list of the Dirty Dozen, the 12 fruits and veggies which are most contaminated by pesticides and should be purchased organic. I was less than thrilled to see that the items on the top of the list are ones that munchkin eats regularly. What worried me most was the fact that even if you wash the fruit or veggie under water for 10 seconds, most of the pesticides remain on it.  The USDA claims that these lists discourage people from eating fruits and veggies, but I totally disagree.  I think that everyone has a right to know what they are putting in their bodies and what else that apple or strawberry might contain.

I also recently watched the documentary Food Inc., which shows where food in the United States comes from and how animals are raised for slaughter.  The documentary combined with the Dirty Dozen list kind of makes me want to become an organic farmer and grow my own food.  There are so many different chemicals that we put in our bodies without even knowing because they are not required to be put on the ingredient labels by the USDA.  For example, low grade hamburger meat is put through a treatment process where it is cleaned with ammonia to kill any bacteria that might be in it.  While it is good and nice that the bacteria won’t be in the food, I’m more worried about the effect that ingesting ammonia will have on a person.  I don’t want to discourage anyone from eating, but I really think we need to rethink the way our food is produced. I also highly recommend the documentary to everyone and if anyone has any books or movies about this topic please send the titles my way because it is something I really want to learn more about.

Now I will get off my soap box and get back to packing.  We are going to Philly for the rest of the week/weekend because my boyfriend is finally coming back from Poland tomorrow!