Hello there, Monica Reinagle here from the Nutrition Diva podcast with a quick little bonus

episode for you. Earlier this week, I discussed the costs and the benefits of eating

seasonally and or locally on the Nutrition Diva podcast.

I hope you heard that episode.

But later that same day, I got an email from Larry thanking me for answering his question

because he was the one that submitted it for that podcast.

And he had a follow-up question for me.

He said, some of the produce on the recently

published EWG Dirty Dozen list aren't available from my local organic growers. So for these

items, would I be better off choosing non-local organic or local non-organic. Maybe you have found yourself with the same dilemma.

Now, the Dirty Dozen List, of course, is a list of the 12 fruits and vegetables found to have

the highest pesticide residues. And, you know, the items on this list barely change from year to year,

but somehow the environmental working group,

the EWG, still manages to make a huge deal out of each year's release of the list.

And the conventional advice runs like this. If you can't buy all organic produce,

then at least make sure that you're buying organic for these 12 items

in order to reduce your exposure to harmful pesticides.

Now, time for true confession.

If you go far enough back in the Nutrition Diva archives, you will hear a much younger

me giving this same well-meaning advice to try to prioritize the purchase of

these 12 items as organic. But you know what? When we know better, we do better. The dirty dozen

list is a perfect example of something that is true, but not terribly meaningful.

...