ewg's dirty dozen

Frankly, it's not always easy to buy organic. Either the produce simply isn't available, or it isn't economically feasible to buy organic all the time {organic produce is absolutely more expensive than conventional}.

The Environmental Working Group recently released the Dirty Dozen: its list of fruits and vegetables containing the most pesticide residues, as well as the list of "clean" {the "Clean Fifteen"} fruits and veggies that are safer to buy conventional. 

Both sweet corn and papaya made the "Clean Fifteen" list. We tend to only buy organic corn because so much corn in the US is genetically modified (about 88%), and, honestly, I'm not sure whether corn is marketed all that clearly as simply corn or "sweet corn," so we'll probably stick to organic {when we're breaking paleo of course, since corn is, unfortunately, a grain}.  Apparently, most Hawaiian papaya is genetically modified, so choosing organic may be the best choice there as well. 

The "Dirty Dozen" is a great reference for determining when to demand organic {I admit it saddens me that sweet bell peppers are a member of the Dirty Dozen; I can almost never find organic bell peppers here}.  Looks to me like if it is thin skinned, or a green, leafy vegetable, buy organic.