Buying wisely organic produce.
There are many common and valid questions that my patients ask about organic produce.
They often wonder whether to buy organic fruit or veggies or all? What exactly are they getting for paying extra for buying organic? And also, how to determine which grocery to choose, as the labels very often show a long list of ingredients that contain names that patients aren’t familiar with.
The same applies to the cosmetics and personal products. What brand to buy to avoid toxins on the skin and whom to trust?
Whom to trust?
Fortunately there are people out there whom I believe we can trust. In 1993 they formed an organization named Environmental Working Group– EWG. Since its beginning this non-profit, independent consumer protection organization has helped consumers to make buying choices. Their agenda is to expose toxins in our environment and help us live healthy lives. On the top of fighting on our behalf with agricultural corporations and government agencies to fully disclose ingredients in our products, the Organization also studies the products that are on the shelves of our stores and gives us, the consumers, the most powerful tool against toxins – The Knowledge.
EWG mobile applicatons:
For those of us who rely on mobile devices the EWG created three powerful applications about organic produce that can be downloaded to our phones:
• EWG Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen. Gives you instant guidance to fruit and vegetables that contain high level of pesticides and should be purchased organic as well as a list of produce that have the lowest level of residual pesticides and might be considered to be purchased non organic.
• EWG Food Scores. Allows you to either scan or enter a name of a product you are considering buying at your grocery store. The EWG does the research for us and gives us simple a score from 10 to 1 to follow, with 10 being the most polluted. But since EWG is an US based organization, the scanner rarely works in Canadian grocery stores; also not all of our local products are on their list. The organization with a non-for-profit agenda relies heavily on consumers support but it keeps growing and more and more products are being included in the list every year.
• EWG Healthy Living. The application helps you choose none toxic personal products, cosmetics, sunscreens and some organic produce as well.
For those of us though who prefer a piece of paper, the EWG created:
EWG’s 2017 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce and
EWG’S 2014 SHOPPER’S GUIDE TO AVOIDING GMO FOOD
There is a lot of information on the EWG website which I encourage you to read. The more we, the consumers know, the better choices we can make from grocery store to our homes. Our better choices will help to move the market and push the policymakers to stand up for us, the consumers and bring more and more healthy, organic produce to the stores.