Organic Avocados?

🥑 💚 🥑 Do you love avocados? Are you paying ridiculous prices for organic?

While I love organic avocados, and choose them where I can (there are some lovely organic avocado farms across Australia!), it’s not really a huge concern if you can’t. Why?

These days there is a lot of debate going on about the quality of our food and whether or not organic is best.

🍏 🍎 It does help to know that there are certain fruits and veggies that are impacted more by pesticides and tend to hold on to their residues a lot more than others. 🍓 🍒

You might find it interesting that avocados are the #2 fruit/vegetable on the Environmental Working Group’s Clean Fifteen list for 2017. Click here

The EWG have released data showing that “only 1 percent of avocado samples showed any detectable pesticides.”

 

 

So don’t worry too much about eating non-organic avocados. There are plenty of fruits and veggies on the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list to worry about!

What is the Dirty Dozen List? 🤔

The Dirty Dozen List is put together by the EWG and the U.S Department of Agriculture in America. It summarises the significant amount of pesticides used on produce sold to us. The EWG also release ‘clean fifteen’ list – the fruit and vegetables which obtain the least amount of pesticides. See here

So what produce is on the dirty dozen list? The results from 2017 found that the fruit and vegetables which contain the most pesticides are the following:

The Dirty Dozen:

* Strawberries
* Spinach
* Nectarines
* Apples
* Peaches
* Pears
* Cherries
* Grapes
* Celery
* Tomatoes
* Capsicum
* Potatoes
* PLUS Chili Peppers

The EWG also supplies a list of produce containing the least amount of pesticide, called the Clean 15.

The Clean 15 for 2017 contains the following produce:

* Sweet Corn
* Avocado
* Pineapple
* Cabbage
* Onions
* Sweet Peas
* Papaya
* Asparagus
* Mangoes
* Eggplant
* Honeydew Melon
* Kiwi
* Rock Melon
* Cauliflower
* Grapefruit

💦 💧 A great way to clean your non-organic fruits and veggies is to add 1 cup of Organic Apple Cider Vinegar or Kombucha Vinegar (I use kombucha vinegar) into a sink of clean water with your produce, lightly stir it around and allow them to soak for about 5 minutes. Then you simply rinse it, pat it dry and store it. This will remove almost all chemical residues and you’ll notice a much cleaner taste. Easy! 🍎🍏😱🤔💦💧🚿👍🏼😊

🐓 🥚 🌽 Another thing you can do is choose to shop at farmers markets instead of supermarkets and consider buying ‘Spray Free’. 🐮 🌾

You’ll notice the difference in the colours and quality, you can meet different growers in the one location, learn about how they run their farms and you’ll typically find that it’s cheaper than buying from your local supermarkets.

I hope this has helped you just a little when it comes to choosing organic or non-organic, especially when it comes to the highly nutritious and absolutely delicious avocado! 🥑🥑🥑