Which fruits and veggies are the most important to buy organic?

It’s true—organic produce can cost a bit more than conventional. So where should you put your organic consumer dollars? Use those shopping dollars to avoid the conventional fruits and vegetables that have shocking levels of pesticides.

Meet the Dirty Dozen Plus™; the fruits and veggies MOST laden with pesticides by conventional growers. If at all possible, buy these organically grown. Thanks to the Environmental Working Group for creating the Dirty Dozen Plus™, based on their annual testing of pesticide levels in fruits and vegetables.

Apples

Celery

Cherry tomatoes

Cucumbers

Grapes

Hot peppers

Nectarines

Peaches

Potatoes

Spinach

Strawberries

Sweet bell peppers

The Environmental Working Group added two “Plus” members of the group, shown below, explaining that “[t]hese crops did not meet traditional Dirty Dozen™ criteria but were commonly contaminated with pesticides exceptionally toxic to the nervous system.”

Kale and collard greens

Summer squash

Shop an organic farmers’ market with Tricia in our new video. Wondering who gets to say what is and is not “organic”? Tricia explains that too, and we decipher the alphabet soup of those organizations in another article.

Please consider sharing this with your friends who don’t always buy organic. Oh, and if you want some good news, check out the Clean Fifteen™—conventional veggies with low levels of pesticides.