Eating Healthily: Where to Begin

Reader Contribution by Mary Lou Shaw
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Photo by Pixabay/Nadine Primeau

Those of us fortunate enough to be growing much of our own food may find it difficult to tell others how to begin. Those of you who are just beginning to make changes towards healthier eating may find it difficult to know where to begin. We all know that it’s easy to feel frustrated and over-whelmed when there’s so much information out there. This is especially true because this information isn’t consistent or easy to find.

I think I’ve found a relatively simple tool that can serve as a starting point for beginners or teachers. This tool is a list called “The Dirty Dozen.” It’s put out annually by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). If people avoid eating conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables on this list, they will reduce their pesticide intake by nearly 80%. That’s an encouraging beginning!

Pesticides and other chemicals are used pervasively in growing commercial crops. We want to provide nutritious fruits and vegetables for ourselves and our families, but attempting to find and pay for organic produce may seem an insurmountable barrier. That’s why I like the idea of there being just twelve foods that we either avoid, or grow ourselves, or buy organically.

Avoiding the chemicals in these twelve foods is critical. It’s important for everyone, but children bear the highest concentration of chemicals in their small bodies. This is also true for the fetus of pregnant mothers. Pesticides contribute to ADHD—a disease that wasn’t even defined 30 years ago. Alzheimer’s disease, autism and diabetes are now linked to nitrite exposure, and their incidence is rapidly increasing. Nitrites are a key ingredient in pesticides and fertilizers in today’s conventional farming. It’s not by chance that the incidence of cancer is now one in two for men and one in three for women.

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