Conventionally Grown Apples Top 2011 List of Fruits and Vegetables High in Pesticides

Informing consumers about the amounts of pesticides sprayed onto conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, and their potential effects on the human body (especially children), the Environmental Working Group has come out with its seventh annual “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce.”

Photo courtesy of arch1design.com.

The shopper’s guide updates information on 53 fruits and vegetables, highlighting the worst pesticide offenders with its “Dirty Dozen” list and the cleanest conventional fruits and vegetables with its “Clean 15” list.

The six worst offenders of the dirty dozen (from highest pesticide levels to least) are: apples, celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach, and imported nectarines.

The rankings were synthesized by analysts at the EWG and based on data collected from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2000 to 2009.

The produce was ranked on a composite score, weighing factors including: the percent of individual produce tested and found to have detectable levels of pesticide on them; and the percent of individual produce with two or more pesticides on them.                                        

Of the apples tested, 97.8 percent had detectable levels of pesticides on them, and of those with pesticides on them, 92 percent contained two or more pesticide residues, according to the findings.

To make matters worse, most samples were washed and peeled prior to testing, so the rankings reflected the amount of chemicals likely present on the foods when eaten.

Celery, spinach, sweet bell peppers, potatoes, lettuce and greens (kale and collards) were the vegetables most likely to retain pesticide contamination.

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Increasing Evidence That Adding More Vitamin D To Your Diet Reduces Heart Disease

We’ve known for a long time that vitamin D aides in the development of strong bones, but increasing research is now also showing that it’s also a vital factor in lowing heart disease and high blood pressure.

Image courtesy of healthmango.com.

Some of the best natural sources of vitamin D are found in fish like salmon, tuna, and mackerel. Smaller amounts of natural vitamin D are found in foods like beef liver, cheese, and egg yolks. It’s a little less known that mushrooms also contain some natural vitamin D.

Vitamin D is so important that other foods are fortified with it. These include some breakfast cereals, orange juices, and dairy products like milk, cheese, and yogurt.

People also naturally make vitamin D when their skin is exposed to the sun, but today’s largely indoor lifestyles are making it harder and harder for people to get the necessary benefits of sun exposure, especially during the wintertime, according to research from the Medical College of Georgia (MCG).

We use to only associate vitamin D deficiency with rickets (a softening and weakening of the bones) and osteoporosis (the thinning of bone tissue and loss of bone density over time).

New research is now also showing a correlation between low levels of vitamin D in a body and the presence of heart disease and high blood pressure.

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Supermarkets Soon Getting New Nutrition Labels For Raw Meats, But Loose Guidelines A Worry

A typical supermarket meat department. Photo from the Orange County Register.

Meat is a delicious part of most people’s diets, providing the body with a lot of high quality nutrients, like iron and protein.

The downside is that the high fat in some meats can be a real problem for anyone trying to lose weight or who has health issues, including: high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, or diabetes.

The connection between diabetes and saturated fats is less obvious and has only gained attention over the last few years. People with diabetes are told cut back on refined sugars, breads, and other carbohydrates, but a few years ago, the American Diabetes Association did a study, which also found that “certain types of fat from red meat may play a major role in the development of type 2 diabetes.”

To help people make healthier and more informed choices when buying meats, the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) made a decision – going into effect on January 1, 2012 – that will require major cuts of meat and poultry by large producers to have nutrition labels either on the products or signs nearby.

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More Fruits and Vegetables in Kids Diets Means Lower Risk of Early Heart Disease, Say Experts

Photo courtesy of The Tehran Times Daily Newspaper.

We all know that adding more fruits and vegetables to our family’s diet is important, but it’s good to remember why. Besides improving our own health, we also teach our kids healthy eating habits that will benefit them for a lifetime.

Between lives that run at a frenzied pace and media marketing of high fat meals, in recent decades healthy eating has dropped dangerously low on people’s priority lists. And, there’s a price for this.

Around the world, and especially in America, people are getting heavier and heavier, developing more and more health problems, and teaching their children the same bad eating habits – consequences are children developing early risk factors for heart disease by the time they reach puberty.

Heart disease is when enough blood can’t circulate to the heart muscle, which slowly damages its ability to function.

In Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, a study was just published which said that children as early as nine years old were showing precursors to heart disease, including  obesity, elevated blood pressure, and high Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, which is the bad kind. Teen smoking was also considered a risk factor.

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American Worry Growing Over Organic Crops Contaminated With Genetically Engineered Seeds

Graphic courtesy of Oregon State University.

In an effort to eat as healthy as possible, many of us have turned to buying an increasing number of products labeled as organic, whether they’re meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables, grains, and so on. The question is: Are we always getting the quality of product that we’re expecting?

“Unsuspecting consumers by the tens of millions are being allowed to purchase and consume unlabeled genetically engineered foods, despite a finding by U.S. Food and Drug Administration scientists that these food could pose serious risks,” according to the Center for Food Safety.

“New genetically engineered crops are being approved by federal agencies despite admissions that they will contaminate native and conventional crops and pose other significant new environmental threats,” adds the CFS.

In February, Consumer Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, released the results of a national telephone poll finding that, “A majority of respondents (58 percent) expressed some level of concern with contamination of organic food crops by genetic engineering.”

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