What’s Up With Pineapple?

Did you know pineapple is right up there at Number 4 of the Clean 15 on the EWG Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides for the second year in a row, after onion, avocado and sweet (but probably GMO-ed) corn? People should be clamoring for pineapple and shunning strawberries. Instead the opposite is true. If I make fresh fruit salad for my guests, all the strawberries get gobbled up, while slivers of pineapple languish in the bowl uneaten. I have become very aware of the EWG Dirty Dozen, which is a good thing because even savvy green guests often cannot recite the fruit that are lowest in pesticides by heart: pineapple, mango, kiwi, papaya, watermelon. Peaches are the worst offenders, so best buy them organic. Apples, nectarines, strawberries and cherries follow right behind. Thirteen different pesticides were detected in strawberries by EWG researchers. What’s an innkeeper to do? For one thing, I buy Canadian strawberries from Hatch’s while the season lasts. Canada has better laws on pesticides than the USA. Now EWG has added domestic blueberries to the list for 2011. Ee-gads! I LOVE blueberries! Remember to wash all fruit thoroughly. Washing doesn’t remove the pesticides that are in the flesh, but surely removes residue from the skin. Did you know Hatch’s offers sustainably grown pineapple? Check it out the next time you are in Wellfleet.