organics :: when to buy and when not to

i'm a stay-at-home mom of 2. the husband is a teacher/filmmaker. needless to say, we aren't raking it in. the presents and interesting dilemma for me as it pertains to grocery shopping.

when hubby and i were single and living life in Seattle with 2 decent incomes and no little mouths to feed it was fairly simple to afford organic foods. just about everything we ate was organic, from produce, to juice to butter and snack foods. it's just what we did. and i can remember getting a little thrill out of finding a worm in my lettuce. ain't no pesticides there.

of course it would stand to reason that now eating organically is even more important to me. got two little bodies to feed that are growing fast. i want to fill them up with good stuff. the sad part--it's to freaking expensive for us. so, now we don't buy organic butter or organic snacks. no organic peanut butter in the cabinet. we choose our battles. i buy organic or hormone free meats always. and organic fruits and veggies as much as possible. but it got me thinking--which produce items are really benefiting from the organic status they have achieved. for example, if the pesticides are on the outside--sprayed onto the fruit, then wouldn't that mean that anything with a thick, peelable skin be fine to eat conventional? something like grapes or nectarines we'd want to have organic. can't wash those well, either, because they are too delicate.

so, i did some poking around and found this interesting bit of information on pesticides and produce. it's an easy to read chart found on the foodnews.org website. basically it ranks the produce based on testing for pesticides. the study was done between 2000 and 2005. for more info, check the website, but i am including the list of 43 fruits and vegs ranked by the pesticide load used on them. this resource has helped me think about what to spend my organic dollars on and what not to.

The Full List: 43 Fruits & Veggies

RANK	FRUIT OR VEGGIE	SCORE
1 (worst)	Peaches	100 (highest pesticide load)
2	Apples	96
3	Sweet Bell Peppers	86
4	Celery	85
5	Nectarines	84
6	Strawberries	83
7	Cherries	75
8	Lettuce	69
9	Grapes - Imported	68
10	Pears	65
11	Spinach	60
12	Potatoes	58
13	Carrots	57
14	Green Beans	55
15	Hot Peppers	53
16	Cucumbers	52
17	Raspberries	47
18	Plums	46
19	Oranges	46
20	Grapes-Domestic	46
21	Cauliflower	39
22	Tangerine	38
23	Mushrooms	37
24	Cantaloupe	34
25	Lemon	31
26	Honeydew Melon	31
27	Grapefruit	31
28	Winter Squash	31
29	Tomatoes	30
30	Sweet Potatoes	30
31	Watermelon	25
32	Blueberries	24
33	Papaya	21
34	Eggplant	19
35	Broccoli	18
36	Cabbage	17
37	Bananas	16
38	Kiwi	14
39	Asparagus	11
40	Sweet Peas-Frozen	11
41	Mango	9
42	Pineapples	7
43	Sweet Corn-Frozen	2
44	Avocado	1
45 (best)	Onions	1 (lowest pesticide load)