Hi everyone this is Monica Reinagel the nutrition diva here with your quick and dirty

tips for eating well and feeling fabulous and today we're talking about pesticides and the best ways to avoid them.

According to a recent survey, three quarters of American shoppers are worried about

pesticides in the food supply, a concern that no doubt sells a lot of organic

food. I agree that it's a good idea to minimize your exposure to pesticides, but I suspect many of us are focusing our pesticide

avoidance efforts in the wrong place.

And now back to today's show on reducing your exposure to pesticides.

There's no question that pesticides can be harmful to humans and other life forms.

Exposure to high levels of pesticides has been linked to an increased risk of cancer and other damage to tissues and organs.

Pesticides or the compounds that they break down into can also disrupt hormone function

affecting fertility reproduction growth and development and we've already

seen the effects of pesticides on other life forms, everything from honey bees to fish to frogs.

And that's why mom straps Junior into his organic hemp snugly every Saturday morning and heads off to the farmers market to round up a

weeks worth of organic produce and to make sure that those free-range chickens are eating only

organic grubs.

And that's why many of you have memorized the environmental

working group's dirty dozen and clean 15 lists of the produce with the

highest and lowest pesticide residues.

But when it comes to pesticide exposure,

what's in your reusable grocery bag

may actually be the least of your concerns. Carl Winter, who's a scientist at the University of California Davis,

recently pointed out that the amount of pesticides you'd be exposed to from eating the dirty dozen fruits and vegetables is vanishingly small.

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