The Dirty Dozen and Chlorine?

You know the chemical found in bleach: chlorine.

It has a distinct smell; we should not get it on our skin since it can burn.

We don’t want to breathe it in. But, we know its use – for cleaning and disinfecting. It is excellent for killing things that are toxic and potentially harmful to our health.

We know it is hazardous to our health in certain forms.

We would never bathe in it.

We would never drink it.

No rational person would deliberately ingest it (or inject it).

Yet we would swim in it. Most of us insist on it.

The chlorine we use at home is the same substance in chlorine pools.

What? Of course, it is. We won’t drink or bathe in it, yet we will get into a pool nearly naked and expose ourselves to it. We are even opening our eyes to this substance.

This comparison is a perfect example of the dose making the poison.

I have no idea how many gallons there are in a pool – but it is a lot. It is a lot of water, whether a backyard pool or the Olympic-sized pool at your local rec center. With chlorine. A poison.

But no way would I get in a pool that doesn’t have chlorine t. All those germs that other people bring in are gross.

Okay, no more about what is or is not in the pool. I’ll get sick thinking about it too much. So let’s back burner that for now.

You have heard of the Environmental Working Group’s annual Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen list.

I don’t know what foods are on those lists this year.

I used to pay attention and recommend that people consider the lists in their food choices.

Not anymore and not years.

For one, I don’t care. I never go out of my way to buy organically grown foods. On the other hand, I don’t go out of my way to avoid them. For example, I have my favorite organic frozen cherries from Costco. I am buying them for the cherries, not for the organic aspect.

I was buying organically grown coffee at Costco for a while, but that was because I liked it, and it was a couple of dollars less than the others.

Back to the EWG dirty dozen: That is a list of the fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide residue. By choosing the organic versions of these foods, the EWG claims you will “reduce your exposure to toxic pesticides.

But there is the deal: the results are accurate but skewed. So while those twelve foods may have more pesticide residue, it is still just a minor blip on the radar—a speck of dust on the radar screen.

For example, the food that is at the top of this year’s list is strawberries. (I looked it up.)

Strawberries reportedly have the HIGHEST amount of pesticide residue over any other fruit or vegetable.

Meh - I still won’t choose organic strawberries first.

Why? Because I could consume 453 SERVINGS of strawberries in one day without any effect, even if those strawberries have the highest pesticide residue recorded for strawberries by USDA.

That isn’t 453 strawberries, but 453 servings. There are about seven strawberries in one serving, so this would be 3,171 strawberries in one day. (I don’t have time for such nonsense.)

And in second place this year: spinach. A woman could consume 774 servings of spinach in one day without any effect, even if the spinach has the highest pesticide residue recorded for spinach by USDA.

With one cup of (fresh) spinach being one serving, that would take about 8 tons to get one cup of cooked spinach. More or less.

I don’t even think Popeye ate that much spinach in one day (he could consume 1084 servings in one day without any issues related to pesticides).

Health experts agree that the existence of pesticide residue does not cause harm or contribute to toxicity.

So, this goes back to chlorine. While we don’t want people to drink chlorine, it is in most swimming pools. And someone would likely have to drink the entire pool in one day to reach toxic levels.

Eat your fruits.

Eat your vegetables.

Wash them with water (no bleach, please).

Don’t skip them because a group has suggested they are potentially harmful. They are entirely safe in the amount that most rational people will consume.

Learn more about how much YOU can consume each day before you start getting to possibly harmful levels at SafeFruitsandVeggies.com.