All fruits and vegetables are good for you, but when people start talking about how to eat healthy, the word “organic” tends to pop up a little too often.
The health differences between organic and conventional (non-organic) produce are vanishingly small. Pesticide residues are next-to-nothing on both. Nutrient content may vary slightly, but not enough to make a real difference in your diet.
So if you’ve absorbed the idea that you need to buy organic to get good-for-you produce, you can relax now. It’s a common misconception. One survey found that after hearing that some vegetables have more pesticide residue than others—a message the Environmental Working Group pushes with the intention of getting more people to buy organic—people said they would be less likely to buy any fruits or vegetables at all. Many of these were shoppers who had answered earlier in the survey that cost was a barrier to buying organic fruits and vegetables.
The truth is that we pretty much all could stand to eat more fruits and vegetables, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re organic or not. If you prefer to buy the organic ones, fine—especially if you view it as voting with your dollars for some farming practices over others. (Whether that is even worthwhile is a complicated question, by the way.) But you are not putting your health at risk by eating non-organic food, so get thee to the produce aisle and enjoy your faves guilt-free.