Next week is April--along with April Fool's Day on, obviously, April 1st. We are not fooling around this year, and the menu is available HERE if you've not already ordered for next week. You'll have lots of time to spend coming up with pranks since you won't be spending time planning and shopping and cooking dinner.
THE DIRTY DOZEN
Undoubtedly, many of you have noticed that we use a lot of organic products and produce in our meals. We are serious about using the best products and ingredients that we can for our and your long-term health, and for the health of the planet. One tool that you may or may not know about is the annual lists published on EWG.org (Environmental Working Group) called "The Dirty Dozen" and "The Clean 15". These lists are very useful because they tell us, year-to-year, what produce has the highest levels of pesticides and fungicides and which are the least contaminated.
HERE is the link to the EWG's 2024 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce, and specifically the "Dirty Dozen," this year are in order of contamination:
Strawberries
Spinach
Kale, Collard Greens & Mustard Greens
Grapes
Peaches
Pears
Nectarines
Apples
Bell & Hot Peppers
Cherries
Blueberries
Green Beans
If you have to choose which items to buy organic, prioritize the items on this list. To compile these lists, EWG analyzes data from tests conducted by the Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration on 47,510 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables. They do not go out and test the produce themselves. This year, EWG determined that 75 percent of all conventional fresh produce sampled had residues of potentially harmful pesticides. But for items on the Dirty Dozen, a whopping 95 percent of samples contain pesticides.
The USDA peels or scrubs and washes produce samples before they’re tested, whereas the FDA removes only dirt first. Even after these steps, the agencies’ tests still found traces of 254 pesticides in all fruits and vegetables tested – and 209 of these were on Dirty Dozen produce. There is much more information about the dirty dozen in the Shopper's Guide that can help you make informed decisions while shopping.
NOTE: It's easy to get depressed and hopeless when reading this information. I use the lists to minimize the amount of exposure knowing that it's nearly impossible to completely avoid all pesticide and chemical exposure. It's also helpful to focus on the better list, the Clean 15.
THE CLEAN 15
The Clean 15 is exactly what it sounds like--the top 15 conventional produce items that have the least amount of detectable pesticides. Almost 65 percent of Clean Fifteen fruit and vegetable samples had no detectable pesticide residues! This list tells you what conventionally grown produce items are safest to buy. HERE is the report, but here is the list for your convenience:
Avocados
Sweet corn
Pineapple
Onions
Papaya
Sweet peas (frozen)
Asparagus
Honeydew melon
Kiwi
Cabbage
Watermelon
Mushrooms
Mangoes
Sweet potatoes
Carrots
Remember that the lists do change from year to year, so it's a good practice to check on them each year to update your knowledge. Also, I personally will still choose organic over conventional produce anytime I can afford to simply because conventional agriculture is not sustainable and many other harms come out of conventional farming. However, it is great to know that this list is pretty safe to feed our families--especially since many of these items don't have so many organic offerings in many markets. EWG has offered this report to the public annually since 2004.
I sincerely hope it helps you and your families!
SUSTAINABILITY
I have a distinct memory of being in 7th grade being told that the Earth probably cannot support more than 7 Billion persons, and that number would happen in my lifetime. Well, that date as come and gone in 2011. Now we are over 8 Billion since 2022. Part of the reason we are still here is we figured out how to make a lot of cheap food with our conventional farming practices. But those practices are not "sustainable"--the problem is that many people do not SEE or KNOW about the problems we are going to have to eventually face when we talk about "sustainability."
I will give you one small--well maybe not "small" but certainly not well known--example: Phosphogypsum. You've likely never heard of it, but it's out there, piling up in alarmingly large, radioactive piles in the southeast in our country. Right now, Florida hosts over a BILLION TONS of this radioactive by-product from fertilizer production.
That's right, the production of fertilizers is creating a massive amount of radioactive waste that has to be managed, and the current "management" is to pile it up into giant "stacks" in low-wealth areas in our country. It's difficult to convey just how large these stacks are, and how many there are. You can read more about it HERE on the EPA website. Some stacks cover hundreds of acres and are hundreds of feet high. In the aerial photo below, you can see that the top of a phosphogypsum stack is covered in water:
Phosphogypsum is transported in pipes as slurry and is very watery when it is first put on the stack. As the phosphogypsum dries out, a crust forms on the stack. The crust thickens over time, reducing the amount of radon that can escape and helping keep the waste from blowing in the wind. Some of the water can leak out the bottom and pollute local groundwater.
I was absolutely aghast when I first learned about this set of practices.
My point is not to depress you, but to illustrate how one small corner of conventional farming is causing current and future harm. A classic illustration of how what we don't know will (eventually) hurt us. We will have to address this at some point as a country and as humans.
Meanwhile, you and I can make daily choices. Everyday choices that may cost us a little more now, but are cheaper than the prices we will have to pay when we may no longer have choice. Together we can strengthen our local food economy by supporting local vendors & farmers and making the best, most informed decisions that we can.
We always bring you our best,
Chef Ginny & Chef Mary
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