According to several sources, the dirtiest (pesticides, chemicals, additives) foods we eat are included in the blended formula I make. I’ve known this for some time and probably a year ago I switched to organic strawberries, spinach, apples, peaches, and tomatoes. The amount of pesticides used on these foods is amazing! For people fed via g-tube for medical reasons this is quite a concern! Blended food is completely pulverized and every single bit of it is digestible and absorbable. My “Tubie” has enough trouble without a bunch of pesticides running through her blood stream!
I am lucky in that I live in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the USA so finding organics is not hard at all. The cost, however, is another thing!! I have started looking for alternatives. One thing I have discovered is that frozen organic fruit is much less expensive than fresh organic fruit. Right now I have given up on tomatoes since the spring crop was so limited and they are quite expensive here.
Here’s a photo of the spinach product I use – it is actually baby spinach and I’ve found the organic version at nearly every grocery store I’ve tried. Since Natalie gets about 1/3 pound of spinach every day it would be a LOT of pesticides going into her body.
Another issue is how we clean our produce. Vinegar is an excellent, inexpensive antimicrobial. I soak my produce in a mix of white vinegar and water at a 25% vinegar to 75% water combination. I let them soak for 10 minutes and then rinse. If I need to scrub them (like celery, which is another “dirty” food) I do that under running water before the soak.
According to several sources, the dirtiest (pesticides, chemicals, additives) foods we eat are included in the blended formula I make. I’ve known this for some time and probably a year ago I switched to organic strawberries, spinach, apples, peaches, and tomatoes. The amount of pesticides used on these foods is amazing! For people fed via g-tube for medical reasons this is quite a concern! Blended food is completely pulverized and every single bit of it is digestible and absorbable. My “Tubie” has enough trouble without a bunch of pesticides running through her blood stream!
I am lucky in that I live in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the USA so finding organics is not hard at all. The cost, however, is another thing!! I have started looking for alternatives. One thing I have discovered is that frozen organic fruit is much less expensive than fresh organic fruit. Right now I have given up on tomatoes since the spring crop was so limited and they are quite expensive here.
Here’s a photo of the spinach product I use – it is actually baby spinach and I’ve found the organic version at nearly every grocery store I’ve tried. Since Natalie gets about 1/3 pound of spinach every day it would be a LOT of pesticides going into her body.
Another issue is how we clean our produce. Vinegar is an excellent, inexpensive antimicrobial. I soak my produce in a mix of white vinegar and water at a 25% vinegar to 75% water combination. I let them soak for 10 minutes and then rinse. If I need to scrub them (like celery, which is another “dirty” food) I do that under running water before the soak.