Healthy Eating and Earth Day: What You Can Do

Hi Ladies,

This is a great article in the celebration of Earth Day and how we can focus on not only helping ourselves, but the environment as well. This was written by Wendy Battles-Plasse of www.healthy-endeavors.com. Please read and enjoy!

Happy Earth Day! It’s that time of year for us to get focused on what we can all do to be more gentle with the environment (although truth be told we should do that everyday!). Since I’m crazy about food and choosing the healthiest varieties to feed my body, I thought this would be the perfect time to share one simple step you can take.

See the chart above? We can all make a difference by choosing to buy organic produce that’s pesticide free. Why? It’s obviously healthier for us and it’s a whole lot gentler on the environment. As you probably already know, pesticides are damaging to the soil and surrounding ecosystems not to mention the toxins they introduce in our bodies.

This handy guide gives you a road map for the best and worst produce when it comes to pesticides. For example, the average apple is sprayed with 2-3 different kinds of pesticides so I always make it a habit to buy organic apples. Same for the other items on the list on the left hand side that we use regularly — celery, lettuce and spinach.

The good news for our pocketbooks, however, is that everything doesn’t have to be organic. There’s always a way to balance our health and wallet and the list on the right shows you the foods low in pesticides. So if you can’t buy organic, these are a safe bet to be healthier choices. And if you have a local farmers’ market or farm stand, it’s a good bet that the produce you’ll find is pesticide free.

Are you aware of what foods have the most pesticides? Can you see how taking a few simple actions using the chart above can help support the environment in a simple way as well as your health? What are your thoughts and how does this inspire you into action?