It's Not Easy Eating Greens

Eating healthy seems to get more confusing every day.  Certainly listening to the news doesn't help.

• The government's new MyPlate guidelines recommend eating more fruits and vegetables.  Nutritionists have always said that if the fruit and vegetable skins are edible we should eat those, too, since the highest concentration of nutrients is right under the skin and peeling will probably remove them.

• Locally we are having an extremely dry year and the radio and TV stations are telling us to conserve water by washing fruits and vegetables in a basin of water rather than under running water from the faucet.
• The Environmental Working Group just did a study of the "dirtiest" fruits and vegetables and says that pesticide residues are not removed even by 10 seconds of washing under running water, so there's a good chance that swishing them around in a basin will just redistribute the contaminants.  EWG's suggestion?  Buy organic - which leads us to our last new story...
• The deadly E. coli outbreak in Europe, which has now been traced to organic produce.

What to do, what to do?  Frankly, those fast-food burgers are looking better all the time; hold the tomatoes and lettuce, please.

"I don't want any vegetables, thank you. I paid for the cow to eat them for me. " ~Doug Coupland