natural foods

EWG’s Dirty Dozen Updated

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Strawberry

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) puts out an updated list of the produce that contains the most toxins each year, as well as the produce that has the least. They test 47 types of produce and the ones that are contaminated with the most pesticides are called the ‘Dirty Dozen’ and the ones that are least contaminated are the ‘Clean Fifteen’.  

These lists are good references when making choices about when to spend more money on the organic version and when to save money by buying conventional produce when it is too expensive to buy all organic food.  

Dirty Dozen as of 2025:  

  1. Spinach 
  1. Strawberries 
  1. Kale, Collard, and Mustard Greens 
  1. Grapes 
  1. Peaches 
  1. Cherries 
  1. Nectarines 
  1. Pears 
  1. Apples 
  1. Blackberries 
  1. Blueberries 
  1. Potatoes 

Clean Fifteen as of 2025 

  1. Pineapples 
  1. Sweet Corn Fresh and Frozen 
  1. Avocados 
  1. Papaya 
  1. Onion 
  1. Sweet Peas (Frozen) 
  1. Asparagus 
  1. Cabbage 
  1. Watermelon 
  1. Cauliflower 
  1. Bananas 
  1. Mangoes 
  1. Carrots 
  1. Mushrooms 
  1. Kiwi 

I like knowing where it is most important to focus my organic-only dollars and appreciate that the EWG updates these lists yearly. It would be ideal if we did not need these lists at all, and maybe if you grow your own food, you don’t, but for the rest of us, the more we know, the better choices we can make.

Eat Well!🍓🍌🌿🍆✨

Gluten Free Snacks

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These are new snacks that arrived in my New Hope Blogger Box that would be great additions to a holiday gift basket or as party food. These are all gluten and dairy free, with clean ingredient lists that you can feel good about sharing.

My favorite of these products is the Thrive Tribe Paleo Bites. These aren’t the kind of product I normally buy so they surprised me with how delicious and snack-able they are, uh, actually were. My oldest son and I finished them off quite quickly. The vanilla in these is the predominant taste and we’ll be buying these again for sure.

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My son also loved these gimMe Seaweed snacks. He likes to snack on the regular seaweed so I gave him these which have extra crunch with the added ingredients, and he really enjoyed them. I’ll be getting more of these too and with only 100 calories per package, that’s quite a healthy lunch box addition.

Jackson’s Honest  chips are as clean as you can get, and the colors are incredibly vibrant which speaks to the quality of the foods and their minimal processing. The sweet potato chips are just sweet potatoes, coconut oil, and salt. The purple potato chips are just potatoes, coconut oil, and salt. That’s it! Their company is on a mission to bring more healthy oils to the table because they have helped the owner’s oldest son who has a rare autoimmune condition. This is a company you can feel especially good about supporting, and about eating and sharing.

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The R.W. Garcia Co. chips are a nice change from a regular tortilla chip. They are flavorful on their own with the hummus coming through much more than the red pepper. Both my sons gave their thumbs up and my youngest is an extremely tough customer to please so these are sure to be crowd favorites.

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Happy snacking and merry-making! Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.