Energy Express by Marilynn Preston

I've never wanted a tattoo of the Dirty Dozen before, but I do now. Because this is when so many spring and summer fruits and vegetables are coming to town, and it's nothing but fun to wander around my local farmer's market, picking and schmoozing.

I'm not talking about the classic Lee Marvin shoot-'em-up. I'm talking about the Dirty Dozen list of which fruits and vegetables you should buy organic, because the conventional versions have been determined to have many more bad-actor, body-wrecking pesticides.

The Dirty Dozen list, and its OK-to-Buy Conventional cousin, the Clean 15, are researched and reported by the Environmental Working Group, a worthy nonprofit with a valuable website (www.ewg.org) that also spreads the word about best and worst sunscreens, cell phone radiation and poisonous ingredients in cosmetics. I've got it bookmarked.

Do avocados have to be organic (and a dollar more each!)? What about strawberries, potatoes, my beloved spinach? It's a jungle out there, and the more informed your decision about buying organic or conventional, the healthier and happier you'll be. And the more wisely you'll spend your grocery money.

Take blueberries. I am addicted and eat them every day for breakfast. I used to struggle, as many of us do: Is it worth the money to buy organic? Should I spend the extra $2 dollars for a tiny box of the organic kind or just trust that the cheaper, more plentiful conventional blueberry from somewhere far, far away, beyond Costa Rica, will be OK?

For me, the struggle has ended. I've done my research. I track on poisons-in-our-environment issues like a hunting dog on a bloody sock. "Marilynn!" I now say, but not so loudly that anyone can hear. "Think about your body. Do you want to feed it ever-so-tiny bits of poisons, or do you want to feed it clean, real food?"

Call me crazy, but clean, real food, wins every time.

Yes, you can try to wash away contaminants with green soaps and various cleansing methods, but when the Environmental Working Group reports that non-organic spinach is grown using more than 50 different pesticides — admittedly not all at the same time — and is considered the dirtiest leafy green you can find, I buy organic. And I thank the farmer who grows it, if she's standing nearby.

But not all organics are worth the higher price.

Some conventional produce is suitably clean and reasonable to eat, the food scientists at EWG say. But how do you know which is which? That's the problem.

Problem solved. I'm going to give you the EWG list of the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15 in just a minute, but first, here's what you need to digest: The fewer manmade chemicals and toxic pesticides you absorb in your lifetime, the better.

If that isn't your baseline belief at this point in your life, than not only are we on different pages, we live on different planets.

This planet, and the people on it, suffer from dirty food. Over time, bit by bit, bite by bite, pesticides and chemicals contaminate our bodies, compromise our health and move us down the slippery path to more disease, cancers and other ailments that it's so much better to avoid.

So that's my pitch, and here are the two most-recent EWG lists:

THE DIRTY DOZEN are foods that carry the highest levels of chemicals and pesticides — ranked in order. So save your money elsewhere, and buy these organic:

— Apples

— Celery

— Strawberries

— Peaches

— Spinach

— Nectarines

— Grapes (This covers raisins and wine, too.)

— Sweet bell peppers

— Potatoes

— Blueberries

— Lettuce

— Kale/ Collard Greens

The Clean 15 list, conventional produce lowest in pesticides, include: onions, sweet corn, pineapple, avocado, asparagus, sweet peas, mango, eggplant, cantaloupe, kiwi, cabbage, watermelon, sweet potatoes, grapefruit and mushrooms.

One last point, just before you go for your own Dirty Dozen tattoo. Local farmers who grow pure, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables can't always afford to get the certified organic label. It's an expense they don't need. So take advantage of your next farmer's market. Meet the growers, and ask questions about how they manage their crops.

Just don't make a pesticide of yourself.

ENERGY EXPRESS-O! PLANTING SEEDS

"Kids are a lot more likely to eat their vegetables if they help pick them out." — Gabrielle Langholtz

Marilynn Preston — fitness expert, wellness coach and speaker on healthy lifestyle issues — is the creator of Energy Express, the longest-running syndicated fitness column in the country. She has a website, http://marilynnpreston.com and welcomes reader questions, which can be sent to MyEnergyExpress@aol.com. To find out more about Preston and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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