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The Importance of Buying Organic
by Sue Moore
It's mid-June here in northern California and the stone fruit is peaking. Peaches, nectarines, plums are all piled high at the farmer's markets. Nothing says summer quite like devouring a perfectly ripe peach, blissfully unaware of the riverlets of peach juice running down your wrists and onto your brand new lime green cotton bermudas.
But just make sure that peach is organic. Why? The Green Guide Institute reports "one serving of peaches can actually exceed the Environmental Protection Agency's daily safety tolerances for a young child." Wow! Protecting the ecosystem sure can hit close to home!
The Consumers Union and the Environmental Working Group has compiled a list of the top twelve fruits and vegetables most likely harbor pesticide residues. To help you commit them to memory here's a nifty mnemonic device(*):
| Fruits |
| Prevent |
Peaches |
| C |
Cantaloupe |
| R |
Raspberries |
| A |
Apples |
| P! |
Pears |
| Support |
Strawberries |
| Green! |
Grapes |
| Vegetables |
| Why |
Winter squash |
| Get |
Green beans |
| Poisoned? |
Potatoes |
| Stop |
Spinach |
| Today! |
Tomatoes |
*Of course you won't need to bother with this if you always buy organically.
Want to know what to do with those seasonal, perfectly ripe, organic fruits and vegetables once you get home from the market? Look them up in either Chez Panisse Fruit or Chez Panisse Vegetables by Alice Waters. Each of these cookbooks is organized like a dictionary. Look up a particular fruit or vegetable, learn about its origin, its seasonality, its specificities; then do something delicious with it by trying out one of the simple, sure-fire recipes that conclude every chapter. The recipes are standbys of Chez Panisse, Alice's pioneering restaurant in Berkeley, California that has been championing seasonal, local, organic ingredients for over thirty years. Anyone can cook out of these books. And they're beautiful to look at as well. Each book is illustrated with striking linocut images of the featured fruits and vegetables. Chez Panisse Vegetables and Chez Panisse Fruits are published by HarperCollins and are widely available at bookstores nationwide.
© 2002 Green Home, Inc.
© 2007 Green Home, Inc.
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