Dr. Nicole Cain breaks down when organic matters and when it doesn't, using the Environmental Working Group's Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen lists. She covers pesticide levels in produce and a study on how lettuce absorbs pesticides.
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My number one rule of thumb when it comes to eating fruits and veggies is to pay attention to the environmental working groups. Clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen. These refer to foods that have higher or lower amounts of pesticides sprayed on your fruits and veggies. There's a scientific study that was done by a little girl. She was doing it for her school program where she had two cups of water. One was just clean drinking water, and the other one had red food coloring. She took lettuce, and she placed one piece of lettuce in each, and she observed what happened. Just like flowers will absorb water out of the vase, the lettuce absorbed the water out of the cup. And what she observed is that the one that was in the clear water absorbed the clear water, and it looked normal and good, but the other one absorbed the water that was red, and you could see the red inside of the lettuce. So the interesting part is that when she went to wash the red lettuce, the water did not wash off the color. So we know that when we spray our foods with pesticides that you can't just wash them off, that the pesticides get integrated into the food that you're eating. So the Dirty Dozen has a reference list of the top 12 most sprayed foods, the ones that you really need to watch out for.
