If the saying “You are what you eat” is true, then I’m toxic. At
least, that’s what the Environmental Working Group would deduce
from the long list of produce that my family consumes on a daily
basis that they dubb “The Dirty Dozen.” And I’m a big fan of the
Environmental Working Group (EWG). I’ve written about the EWG in
a prior posting, “Don’t Get Burned by Unsafe Sunscreens.” The
EWG is an impartial non-profit organization unaffiliated with
any consumer products company (composed of a team of scientists,
engineers, policy experts, lawyers and computer programmers) and
conducts research on products to expose threats to consumers and
the environment. Who would have known you could be ingesting 13
pesticides when you consume a stalk of non-organic celery? Or
that if you eat five fruits and vegetables a day from the EWG’s
Dirty Dozen list below that you consume an average of 10
pesticides per day? From 2000-2008, the EWG reviewed over 96,000
produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and