The Dirty Dozen^™ and The Clean Fifteen^™

The big thing about organic is it avoids synthetic pesticides and doesn’t put chemicals into the groundwater. Organic produce also doesn’t affect wildlife, reduces fossil fuel consumption, and tastes better. A lot of fruits and vegetables have pesticide residue that doesn’t always come off with basic washing. For some people, it’s challenging to have access to organic food for financial and regional reasons. The Dirty Dozen™ and The Clean Fifteen™ are helpful tools when deciding which foods to buy organic.

The Dirty Dozen™ includes foods where pesticides are sprayed directly onto the part that we eat, which makes them more hazardous, especially for children. There are also a few additional items that fall under The Dirty Dozen +™ list—and it’s best to buy those organic whenever possible—but the primary 12 are most important to buy organic. These lists only cover fruits and vegetables, but it’s important to remember that animal food should also be high quality and humane. I think that the fear and trauma the animal goes through translates to the food and then to the human, so it’s important to only buy local, sustainable, organic meat.

Another thing to consider is that arsenic is fed to commercial chickens. Arsenic is a deadly poison, and it’s given to commercial chickens to help them combat parasites and promote growth. Arsenic keeps the chickens from getting sick when they’re all cooped up, so it’s actually a way to produce more chickens faster. But if it’s not good for the chickens, it’s definitely not good for human consumption, especially in the quantity that humans are consuming chicken. For that reason, it’s important to completely avoid commercial chicken and go organic.

The Clean Fifteen™ is made up of foods that have an outer covering, so when they’re sprayed you’re not exposed to the chemicals since you’re only eating the inside. Or, for other fruits and vegetables, they’re deemed clean simply because producers don’t use a lot of pesticides on them, if any. The vegetable with the lowest level of pesticides is an onion. It’s so cool that it has this special wrapping and the pesticides can’t get in there.

Ninety percent of Americans are unaware of what goes into their body and their children’s bodies every day. Celebrities and pop culture seem more important these days, but they’re really just distractions from what creates a healthy planet and healthy future. Don’t fall into this trap.

Check out The Dirty Dozen™ and The Clean Fifteen™ here, and write them down or print them out to use whenever you go grocery shopping. Please keep in mind that these two lists are constantly being updated to reflect the latest findings and agricultural changes, so please find the most recent versions from a reputable Internet source.

The Dirty Dozen +™	The Clean Fifteen™
1. Strawberries	1. Sweet Corn*
2. Spinach	2. Avocados
3. Nectarines	3. Pineapples
4. Apples	4. Cabbage
5. Peaches	5. Onions
6. Pears	6. Sweet peas frozen
7. Cherries	7. Papayas*
8. Grapes	8. Asparagus
9. Celery	9. Mangoes
10. Tomatoes	10. Eggplant
11. Sweet bell peppers	11. Honeydew Melon
12. Potatoes	12. Kiwi
13. Hot peppers +	13. Cantaloupe
+ Dirty Dozen PLUS	14. CauliflowerGrapefruit
	15. Grapefruit
	* A small amount of sweet corn, papaya, and summer squash sold in the United States is produced from genetically modified seeds. Buy organic varieties of these crops if you want to avoid genetically modified produce.