Deciding which produce to buy organic

The demand for organic foods has gone up over the years. But when it comes to your fruits and veggies, which ones should you buy organic?

At David's Natural Market in Columbia, it's all organic all the time.

But when you're picking your produce, there are certain fruits and vegetables you should buy organic if you want to avoid a lot of pesticides.

Carrots fall into one of those categories.  

Greg Resch, the general manager at David's says, "Root vegetables, carrots things like that are grown in the ground, they're directly absorbing things. So anything that's sprayed on the ground is going to be absorbed into it."

Leafy green vegetables are another. They are sprayed heavily to keep the bugs away.

Resch says, "Everything likes leafy green vegetables every bug out there likes those so that's always been a big issue is dealing with leafy greens, you've seen them the edges are eaten and stuff like that."   

When it comes to fruit, berries are known to be treated heavily with pesticides because of how delicate they are.

Resch says, "They're very delicate. It doesn't take much at all for the littlest bug to ruin the berries so they are often heavily sprayed."  

And if you're into pre-packaged produce because it saves you time, remember there's also a downside.

Resch says, “It's the one that's been washed 3 or 4 times then packaged, a little wet, a little damp, 20 people have touched it that's where things go wrong."   

All that extra handling can raise the risk for contamination.    

There are some foods you don't have to buy organic like bananas and avocados.  

They both have thick skins that protect the insides from pesticides.

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