Good advice! While washing is very important, it won't get rid of all of the pesticides.

I try to buy organic for that reason, but I know it's usually cost-prohibitive for some people. There is a "dirty dozen" list circulating around that gives advice for the fruits and veggies that are the most affected by pesticides and would benefit the most from being organic for people who can't go all organic.

Same here, I have the "dirty dozen" list memorized. :o)
Have been buying lots of organic greens to add to the smoothies, but just found out all greens and veggies grown in CA or AZ are watered with water from the Colorado River. This river is heavily contaminated with a chemical called perchlorate which is basically rocket and missile fuel and causes lots of health problems. So, you just can't win.

Sometimes I like to wonder what fruits and vegetables tasted like before we ruined the environment!

It is hard to know where our foods are grown, even harder to know how they are watered....however much of California vegies are grown in the Salinas Valley....a very long way from the Colorado River.Even the huge Central Valley, the 'bread basket' of the country, gets its water from Northern California. (DH worked many years for the Dept of Water Resources....sending it thru Sacramento River and aqueduct to our southern counties. Even some of our southernmost counties receive water thru the aqueduct .... more costly than Colorado River water, but lots of it goes SOUTH.

Nanny, here's the quote from the newspaper article. I googled it and there's lots of corroborating info.

Rocket Fuel in Salad

Tests on lettuce samples from a California supermarket found the presence of this toxic substance, which leached from a defunct rocket fuel plant in Nevada into the Colorado River, which irrigates the fields where most American lettuce is grown.

I use a capful or so of hydrogen peroxide with water and soak my fruits/veggies. Plus I buy organic for the foods with highest pesticide ratings.

Please understand that you must also treat certified organic food the same way. Approved pesticides can be harmful and must be washed off. Don't think that 'organic' means pesticide free.

Hey....did not mean to disagree over the 'rocket fuel in our salads'....was only intending to post a bit of geography. Those articles are probably 100% accurate. I have spent a winter in Yuma, AZ/Winter Haven CA and, yes, they grow miles and miles of green veggies, irrigated 24/7 for markets all over the world...2 towns 5 minutes apart, but you cannot take vegies from AZ to Ca.....crossing the Colorado River. I don't think, they ship to Ca either.
And, I am not saying that I believe the Sacramento River water is as wonderful after it leaves the Sierra Nevada Mountains and travels thru those aqueducts that have had every kind of 'unmentionable object' found in them; its just not Colorado River Water sent to where a great amount of agriculture is grown in California. My former state has 500 miles of canals and aqueducts carrying water from Northern California to the Central Valley even over the Techapi Mountains into the Los Angeles Basin and a more recent aqueduct to the counties near San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria on the coast. The water begins its long journey in the Siskious near the Oregon border and becomes the Sacramento River. There are huge storage resevoirs/dams all along the route toward the San Francisco Bay where is it retrieved and piped into the huge aqueduct that takes it south and east and west.

A thread on another message board asked 'what sight-seeing thing in your area most impressed you and would you like to share with others'.....so maybe that was on my mind when your thread came up. WATER....California's real Gold.And the Aqueduct which is the life blood of much of California.
Pesticides in our water....in our air....in ourselves, let me count the ways.
Genetically altered whatevers.....wow, topics that make one wonder what kind of 'altered' future we have facing us.

Yes, that's the big picture. Even if you buy supposedly organic, safe produce, it can still be (and more than likely is) contaminated by the water, soil, whatever. I guess we are doomed, no matter how clean we try to keep our diet.

When I go to the store and watch how shoppers handle the food, going so far as to open the package (Strawberrys), take some fruit out with their hands and put it up to their noses to smell, there is NO WAY I would prepare it without washing it first - EWWWWWW!!!