The Dirty Dozen - non organic produce and pesticides

If you’ve decided that you want to purchase fresh organic produce but not quite sure which ones to prioritise, the Dirty Dozen list below may help you decide how to lower your pesticide intake and eat cleaner.

The following foods contain the highest amounts of pesticides:

🌱Apples 🌱Blueberries 🌱Capsicums 🌱Celery 🌱Cucumbers 🌱Grapes 🌱Lettuce 🌱Nectarines 🌱Peaches 🌱Potatoes 🌱Spinach 🌱Strawberries

It’s a few more than a dozen but we could also add..... 🌱Green beans 🌱Kale 🌱Collard greens

Because our liver is our organ of detoxification that also means it’s the storehouse of all pesticides and toxins.

So eating clean and organic produce as much as possible, helps support our liver function and overall health. To understand the liver better, you need to understand it has two pathways of detoxification.

Phase 1 - Where everything you are exposed to....food, environmental toxins, alcohol, cigarette smoke, drugs, pollution, sunscreen, chemicals in body products or foods, pesticides are all taken into the body and its the liver's role to break all these substances down (or at least try) so they are not as harmful for the body. Some things that we encounter in our modern world simply cannot be broken down and not cause harm for our body.

Phase 2 - Once the liver has tried to break down these toxins or substances, it must then move them out of the body and eliminate them through waste (urine and stools). This involves our urinary and digestive system to work well with the liver. If the liver or elimination processes are sluggish or not working effectively we will have more extreme symptoms and a slower transit moving these toxins or waste from the body.

What lifestyle adjustments do you think you could do to help support your liver function and bodies natural detoxification processes?