Mindful Mum has created the following guide to picking and choosing organic fruit and vegetables. The guide is based on ‘buying organic’ when the pesticide residues in a particular food are high. There is less need to go organic when the food does not contain high levels of pesticides.

Which foods do I need to buy organic and which do I not need to buy organic?

See list of fruit and vegetables with the highest and lowest levels of pesticides below.

Download How to Avoid Pesticides in Fruit and Vegetables, print & pin it to your fridge or cut out and keep it in your purse for when you go shopping.

The list is based on food sampled by the Pesticide Residue Committee and assessed by PAN UK for years 2000-05. The downloadable guide, includes sources and a review of the most recent PRC report to highlight where specific samples of food have higher or lower levels of pesticides since PAN UK’s initial analysis.

Why do I need to consider organic produce?

For Mindful Mums one of the key reasons for choosing organic fruit and vegetables is that they are as close as possible to being free of all chemical residues and potential toxins. Washing and peeling removes bacteria and can remove some residue but some pesticides are systemic which means they are within the fruit or vegetables.

Popular children’s fruit and vegetables such as apples, pears, oranges and carrots are regularly found to contain a cocktail of pesticide residues. In the 2009 Q2 report, 36 out of 39 pears sampled contained pesticide residues, 30 contained multiple residues and 2 samples had an intake of pesticides, Chlormequat, for the critical group (toddler) above the ARfD (Acute Reference Dose – the amount of a chemical that can be taken in at one meal or on one day without appreciable health risk of  health to the consumer.)

Other reasons for buying organic include: better taste,  more nutrients and concerns regarding the impact of intensive farming methods and chemicals on our wildlife and countryside.

Why do I need to eat 5 A Day?

5 A DAY is based on advice from the World Health Organization, which recommends eating a minimum of 400g of fruit and vegetables a day to lower the risk of serious health problems, such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and obesity.  The majority of fruit and vegetables count towards your 5 A DAY. However, potatoes and cassava don’t count because they mainly contribute starch to the diet.

Why do we use pesticides?

After the Second World War the use of chemicals in food production became standard. Pesticides were used to kill insects that damaged crops, herbicides to kill weeds that choked them, fungicides to cure diseases and fertilisers to help maintain the fertility of large scale farms. Supported by modern mechanisation the farming industry was able to produce plentiful and cheap food. These intensive farming methods became standard and by the 1980′s we were using hundreds of chemicals in not only the production of our food but also to preserve, transport and store food.

The drawbacks of using pesticides have become more apparent over the last 20 years. These include; contamination of potentially toxic chemicals in our food, the destruction of wildlife and pollution of rivers. Pesticides can’t tell the difference between bad insects and good insects such as bees which pollinate. Furthermore, it has been discovered that pests and diseases are becoming more resistant to the chemicals used. It can take as little as two years for a pest to develop resistance to a new chemical.

Sources:

5 A Day website www.nhs.uk Judith Wills, The Food Bible, 2007, p71 Pesticide Residue Committee, Reports 2009 www.pesticides.gov.uk Food Standards Agency, Chemical Safety, Pesticides in Food www.food.gov.uk Pesticide Action Network (PAN UK) Residues In Fruit and Vegetables 2000-2005,www.pan-uk.org Advisory Committee on Pesticides, www.pesticides.gov.uk Chemical Regulation Directorate (CRD), www.pesticides.gov.uk/ EC Maximum Residue Regulation (396/2005/EC),www.pesticides.gov.uk/prc.asp?id=2512