You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘produce’ category.
This chart says it all:
2007 Consumer Expenditures: Candy and Soft Drinks vs. Fresh Produce
Actually, it’s more like: Candy 1, Produce 0.96. But still, the fact that sales of candy, snacks, soft drinks (i.e., liquid candy), and (fergawdsakes) water is beating out sales of produce… well, there’s a ways to go before people are eating well in the USA. I don’t expect that these numbers are terribly different up here. In fact, comparative numbers from around the world would be pretty interesting.
I think that if I had been asked to guess at how these numbers stack up, I would have predicted that produce sales are even lower in comparison to the junk food categories lumped together here.
From pro basketball to urban farming… only in America!
One of Wisconsin’s few African-American farmers, Allen, a former professional basketball player in the ABA, founded Growing Power in 1993 in Milwaukee to help teach inner-city kids about the origins of their food. It has expanded to include satellite-training sites in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Mississippi.
The group’s high-quality produce and grass-fed meats are sold through farmer’s markets that target inner city neighborhoods in Chicago and Milwaukee, where access to fresh food is often difficult and expensive.
Here’s the link to the Growing Power website.
The produce ranking was developed by analysts at the not-for-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) based on the results of nearly 43,000 tests for pesticides on produce collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration between 2000 and 2005. A detailed description of the criteria used in developing the rankings is available as well as a full list of fresh fruits and vegetables that have been tested (see below).
EWG is a not-for-profit environmental research organization dedicated to improving public health and protecting the environment by reducing pollution in air, water and food. For more information please visit www.ewg.org.
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) |
Note: We ranked a total of 44 different fruits and vegetables but grapes are listed twice because we looked at both domestic and imported samples.
