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Smart Picks Among Conventionally-grown Fruit
An Excerpt from Fresh Choices: More Than 100 Easy Recipes for Pure Food When You Can't Buy 100% Organic
By Rochelle David and David Joachim
While Americans ate 28 percent more fresh fruit in 2000 than in the 1970s, current U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures show that we could be doing better. Less than 40 percent of American adults and only 26 percent of children over the age of 1 eat the recommended two to five servings of fruit a day. And there are plenty of reasons why we should try to do better.
Simply put, fruits are among the most nutritious foods on the planet. They contain virtually no fat, and they're loaded with fiber, vitamins, minerals and health-protecting antioxidants. They also give you the satisfying sweetness of sugar without the empty calories of most other sweets.
And fruit may even help you lose weight. USDA researchers recently found that people who eat more fruit tend to have a lower body mass index (a measure of your weight relative to your height) and lower overall weight.
So what fruits should you choose when organic isn't available? A number of fruits tend to be low in pesticide residues and have little negative impact on the environment. Coincidentally, they also tend to be higher in valuable nutrients than other varieties. Here's the rundown on which conventionally grown fruits you can choose with confidence:
One banana supplies nearly 400 milligrams of potassium. Research shows that eating bananas a few times a week can help to lower your lifetime risk of high blood pressure, heart atta
