That ants on a log snack you fed your preschooler for lunch?  It may have been served up with a side of up to 67 kinds of pesticide residues, says a new report by the Environmental Working Group.  Same goes for those sweet strawberries that are currently in season.

In an effort to raise awareness about pesticide use, the group  reviewed 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and put together a list of the “dirty dozen” fruits and vegetables, or those that contain the highest amount of pesticide residues even after being washed with a high-pressure washing system.

If reducing pesticide exposure is your goal, you don’t have to go 100 percent organic, says the Environmental Working Group’s Amy Rosenthal.   “You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen,” she said.

Here’s the list:

Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

The Internet is buzzing over a Sesame Street Workshop study that found when given  a choice between an unhealthy snack and a healthy one, kids were more likely to go with the healthy choice when it had a sticker of a favorite cartoon character attached.  In this case, it was a showdown between chocolate and broccoli and the sticker feature the popular Sesame Street character Elmo. Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

I’ve used lots of  little tricks to get my kids to eat their veggies.  Broccoli florets are little trees, and my girls are hungry giants.  Cauliflower are snowflakes, and green “crayons” (asparagus) are especially tasty roasted with olive oil or dipped into a side of ranch dressing.

But serving up green beans garnished with the head of a snake?  That’s bound to turn kids off greens for good.

Continue reading »

Tweet

3

Pin It

Today on Babble:

“Farm Share Survival Guide”

By Sierra Black

Got lots of CSA veggies? Here’s how to cook ‘em!

Read it here.

Tweet

0

Pin It

So this whole farm share thing is working out better than I expected it to. I actually managed to use almost everything this week. It also looks cool, at least the last box did. Very colorful.

Here’s how it went down: Continue reading »

Tweet

5

Pin It

The words “Manhattan” and “Farm” don’t go together in my mind. So when I heard that there was a FarmShare that offered deliver to The Big Apple, I was skeptical.

After some soul searching (more like gut-searching, as in examining my ever-expanding waistline), I decided that I was willing to give it a try. We went whole hog — which is just an expression, because there’s no bacon involved — and got vegetables, farm fresh eggs, and fruit. Continue reading »

Tweet

9

Pin It