Pick Your Poison

Food labels are becoming more informative, but no label can ever contain all the information a discerning, health-conscious shopper needs.

For instance, unless you buy organic produce, you really have no idea how much pesticide residue your produce might contain. But a handy new tool from the Environmental Working Group will help.

The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides consists of two simple lists: The Dirty Dozen and The Clean 15. The former contains items that tend to show up at the store with lots of pesticides. Peaches are the dirtiest of the dirty dozen. Some others are apples, bell peppers, and imported grapes.

But as Lesley Stahl goaded Alice Waters into saying on 60 Minutes Sunday night, organic produce can be expensive. The Clean 15 List helps here. You probably don't need to buy the organic varieties of, for example, sweet corn or broccoli. Onions are the cleanest of the clean 15.

A wallet-sized version of the list can be downloaded. The site also features a full list of 47 produce items along with their "pesticide load" scores.