Vert-à-Go

The Environmental Working Group has just released the 5th edition of its Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides. This handy cut-out-and-carry card lists which fruits and vegetables have the highest (and lowest) levels of pesticides so you can see at a glance when it’s most important to buy organically-grown produce and when the benefits of organic are less dramatic.

An EWG simulation of thousands of consumers eating high and low pesticide diets shows that people can lower their pesticide exposure by almost 80 percent by avoiding the top twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated instead. Eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables will expose a person to about 10 pesticides per day, on average. Eating the 15 least contaminated will expose a person to less than 2 pesticides per day. (Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides)

Living in Saskatchewan, it’s much easier to find organic versions of some of the Dirty Dozen than others, especially if you prefer to buy more locally-grown produce. For instance:

• I don’t remember ever seeing organic BC peaches, nectarines,  pears, or cherries–I have seen Washington-grown ones at Safeway, but their taste was disappointing (I’ve eaten amazing organic soft fruit while in Washington, so freshness is obviously the issue, not inherent quality!). Most times, I would really rather eat something else entirely rather than risk spending a lot of money on imported out-of-season fruit that turns out to be sour or woody.
• Grandora Gardens (at the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market) and other vendors sell bell peppers treated with biological controls during late-spring/summer/early-autumn. You can grow your own in the summer.
• It has become much easier to buy organically-grown strawberries in the supermarket–both Safeway and Extra Foods often have Driscoll’s organic berries for sale during the spring and summer (imported from California). Local u-pick strawberries are not organically grown and although they certainly try to minimise chemical application, I am unsure about the level of pesticides involved. It’s pretty easy to grow your own–they are perennials and like all berries, taste a thousand times better picked straight off the plant.
• Organically-grown celery is easily found at (most/selected branches) Safeway, Sobey’s, and Extra Foods–let me know if you have trouble tracking it down.
• I’ve not seen organically-grown kale, but suspect it would be available at Dad’s–this is not really something I ever buy as there are so many other options for locally-grown greens (buy grow, freeze, or sprout your own year-round).
• Lettuce, again, is available from Grandora Gardens and other farmers’ market vendors in season. It is also ridiculously easy to grow your own from early May-September.
• Chilean grapes are often treated with up to 17 different pesticides. If you can’t find organic ones, US-grown grapes use fewer pesticides.
• Organically-grown carrots are available in grocery stores, but the ones from the farmers’ market are far superior in taste. I don’t know if conventional Saskatchewan carrot growers need to use as many pesticides on their carrots as those grown further south–our drier climate and colder winters can help reduce the need for many fungicides/insecticides.

And as far as the Clean 15 goes?

1. I tend to buy onions either from the farmers’ market, but I have no qualms about buying conventional Manitoba-grown ones from the grocery store.
2. I don’t buy a lot of avocados but will likely continue to get the odd regular one from the grocery store.
3. I tend to buy fresh corn in season from the farmers’ market, and then conventionally-grown frozen.
4. I generally have a greater concern about whether pineapple (and other tropical fruit) is fair trade and what the working conditions are for the farm workers than whether it’s organic.
5. I’m not a huge mango fan!
6. I buy asparagus in season from the farmers’ market. I never buy it from South America as the food miles are just too appalling.
7. I buy fresh peas from the farmers’ market and am still trying to find a large-enough, sunny-enough patch to grow my own. Otherwise, frozen conventional.
8. Kiwi fruit gives me an anaphylactic reaction, so I never buy them! It is very high on the list of allergy-inducing fruit, so be careful before giving it to children or serving it to guests.
9. I buy cabbage from the farmers’ market is so fresh and delicious and economical, but good to know that the grocery store is an acceptable backup.
10. I have personally never figured out how to make eggplant edible, myself! I’ll happily eat someone else’s.
11. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a papaya!
12. I never buy watermelon out of the summer season because it comes so far and tastes so dreadful, but will feel more comfortable about buying it from the grocery store when I do (now, if I could just find a fool-proof method for choosing a good one! Any advice?).
13. Interesting that broccoli rates so highly. I would have thought it would have ranked much worse because of all the tiny flowers that are vulnerable to pests! I like to buy it locally when it’s in season because it’s so beautiful and fresh, and bought organic when it’s on sale. But I will feel much happier about picking up a bag of regularly-grown from the bargain bin in future!
14. Again, interesting that tomatoes rated so highly. I would have thought they’d be worse, although I suppose if they’re grown in a greenhouse, pests are not a huge problem. My main issue is that grocery store tomatoes taste vile, and conventionally-grown tomatoes can be vulnerable to salmonella due to bad growing practices. Avoiding pesticide residue is not the only reason to buy organic! I grow my own in the summer, and buy from Grandora/other farmers’ market vendors during late spring/summer/autumn. (it takes a *lot* of energy to heat a greenhouse in Saskatchewan, or even BC, in the winter–very possibly moreso than growing them in a hot southern field and trucking them north). Seasonality is my main consideration–I haven’t bought a fresh tomato for months (and yes, I am missing them A LOT).
15. Sweet potato is something else that I’d usually get at the regular grocery store.

Here are the lists of the best and the worst–you can get a printable version of the EWG Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides that you can put in your wallet here. Remember, avoiding pesticide residue is not the sole reason for buying organically grown produce–organic practices can help improve soil, reduce water usage, improve environmental conditions for animals, birds, and insects, and may (but certainly not always!) go hand in hand with better working conditions for farm workers. It often (but again, certainly not always) may have a lower risk of disease or contamination. Conversely, local conventionally-grown produce may in fact have a better environmental footprint than imported organic. But reducing pesticide exposure is a pretty major concern for most organic consumers, and so it pays to know exactly what you’re eating.

The Dirty Dozen (always buy organic)

1. peach
2. apple
3. bell pepper
4. celery
5. nectarine
6. strawberries
7. cherries
8. kale
9. lettuce
10. grapes–imported (this is a US guide, so this would mean non-US-grown grapes)
11. carrot
12. pear

The Clean 15 (lowest in pesticides)

1. onion
2. avocado
3. corn
4. pineapple
5. mango
6. asparagus
7. peas
8. kiwi
9. cabbage
10. eggplant
11. papaya
12. watermelon
13. broccoli
14. tomato
15. sweet potato

Donna Ziegler from the Canadian Cancer Society will give a talk about the connection between pesticides and cancer at the next Saskatchewan Environmental Society presentation next month.

Pesticide exposure may increase your risk of developing cancer. Most of the research has focused on occupational (workplace) exposure to pesticides, linking them to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia, as well as cancers of the prostate, kidney, brain, and lungs. But there is also evidence that children may be especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of these chemicals.  These chemicals appear in a wide variety of places for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from pest controls designed to reduce the threat of disease and safeguard the food supply, as well as those aimed solely at ornamental lawn or garden use. Many of the latter pesticides have recently been banned in a number of Canadian municipalities. This presentation will give you the facts and advice for reducing your exposure risk. 

Pesticides and cancer presentation (for the Saskatchewan Environmental Society)

When: Wednesday 11 March, 7pm

Where: Lower Auditorium, J S Wood Library, 1801 Lansdowne Avenue, Saskatoon, SK (Google map)

Admission: FREE

For more information: Saskatchewan Environmental Society, 665-1915

Gardeners of all levels of experience are welcome to attend an informative day of gardening workshops at the University of Saskatchewan, offered as part of the Master Gardener program.

The morning begins with a presentation by Early’s Farm & Garden associates about their favorite plants and products, followed by a keynote address by author and horticulturalist Sara Williams, who will discuss hardy and underused grasses and ferns.

Following a buffet-style lunch, gardeners will attend a workshop of their choice:

• Color and Design in the Perennial Border (Sara Williams)
• Hypertufa Pots (Angie Skiba) This class is limited to 15 students, so register early
• Practical Organic Gardening (Paule Hjertaas, President of SNAP–Saskatchewan Network for Alternatives to Pesticides)

U of S Master Gardener program midterm break: Take a break From the cold

When: Saturday 21 February,  9am-4pm

Where: College of Agriculture building, 51 Campus Drive, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK (Google map)

COST: Registration fee $70 for a full day (includes lunch and refreshments). Half-day rate is $35 (lunch not included). Registration deadline is 18 February. To register, call (306) 966-5539.

For more information: Master Gardener program web site, call 966-5546 or email mastergardeners@usask.ca

photo: my 2008 Weird James Beard Award winner

When you grow your own food, you inevitably produce some bizarre specimens from time to time. Nature isn’t perfect–no matter what those bins of clone-like supermarket produce or air-brushed food magazine photos might lead you to believe. This prejudice against misshapen vegetables is responsible for supermarkets rejecting thousands of tons of perfectly edible food every year, which, if farmers cannot sell elsewhere, is relegated to compost or animal feed, or simply left to rot in the field. It also forces a significant number of farmers to use pesticides for purely cosmetic reasons.

How did we reach a point where so much food is wasted or unnecessarily doused with chemicals simply because someone decides it doesn’t look pretty enough to eat? I believe that a vicious circle has been created between consumers, who refuse to buy blemished produce, and supermarkets, which respond to and then further feed that choice by only stocking cosmetically uniform produce. Generations of people have become so removed from the food production chain that they no longer understand that vegetables come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, that they are grown in fields exposed to insects and the elements, and that the best-tasting fruits and vegetables are often the funniest-loooking ones. Because they’ve never grown their own food and usually have no idea who is growing the food they buy or how they’re doing it, their main instinct in the supermarket is fear*–fear that can only be assauged by seeing the same reassuringly familiar and homogeneous produce every time they walk in.

Thankfully, there is a growing backlash against this produce perfectionism. I also hope that as more people take up gardening, they will develop an emotional investment in their food that will keep them from cavalierly tossing a not-so-perfect specimen. Indeed, I hope that they will embrace them and celebrate them (and, if possible, eat them)!

This year, I’ve given my annual weird vegetable award to the potato above, which is shaped like some kind of…well, I’m not exactly sure, but it’s got an interesting snout, at any rate, and it looks quite jovial. For more amusing examples of Regular Food Gone Horribly Wrong, visit MoFA (Museum of Food Abnormalities). And please comment about or send pictures of your own strange home-grown examples!

* fear of eating food that ‘tastes gross’, fear of eating food that has gone bad, fear of germs and dirt on food, fear of getting sick from food, and the deep-seated fear of acknowledging that food is produced in the real world and isn’t just magicked out of thin air by white-clad fairies.

(right: Gnome Suzuki. Admit it. You want one. Bad.)

The other night we had someone from the Saskatchewan Environmental Society come to the door about their Pesticide Reduction Project, which has had great success over the past two years. The SES has surveyed over 400 Saskatoon residents, and almost 80% of those surveyed have agreed to try going pesticide-free for this growing season. Approximately two-thirds of all those surveyed also agreed with the idea of implementing a bylaw to eliminate the use of cosmetic pesticides (similar to what has recently been enacted in Ontario).

We have already eliminated the use of pesticides in our gardens and were happy to put up one of their Pesticide-Free signs in the front garden (from the Canadian Cancer Society, who, along with everyone else here, classifies insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, and fumigants under the banner of ‘pesticides’). The SES is still looking for volunteers to help with the 2008 Pesticide Reduction Project:

We need lots of volunteers to help with our door to door surveys. Yes, this means knocking on doors and asking people about their pesticide use and attitudes about pesticides. Overall, doing these surveys has been a very positive experience. It is a great way to get out and meet your fellow citizens, to discuss important environmental issues with them and to make your city a safer and healthier place to live. If you are interested in helping out, please contact the SES office at 665-1915.

The SES also has a great bunch of information sheets about how to maintain healthy lawns and gardens without the use of harmful chemicals here.

If you’ve taken the plunge and gone pesticide-free in your green spaces, you might want to show off your handiwork by entering the David Suzuki Digs My Garden contest. Send in a photo or video of your garden, and you could win prizes–including a chance for Gnome Suzuki to pay a visit. By signing up, you’ll also get tips on growing your garden ‘drug-free’, and find out how to take action to ban pesticide use in your home province. I’ll definitely be entering our newly remodelled front garden!