When “Cleaning Up” your diet, begin to think beyond the food itself and consider how your food is grown, stored and prepared. Here are 5 simple things you can begin doing today to improve the quality of your food.

1. Buy Organic: By buying organic you are getting foods without the pesticides, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics and can not be genetically engineered (Non-GMO).  Many of these chemicals and practices have been shown to be toxic and can lead to many diseases including cancer. To get the top 12 foods you should absolutely buy organic see the ewg dirty dozen list.
2. Buy Local: Do you have a farmers market near you? Its worth finding out because foods grown locally tend to be the highest quality in comparison to the food that were grown in far away. Local produce are picked when it is ripe not when it is hard to avoid bruising in transit. Local meats can be eaten fresh and don’t need to be injected with coloring and preservatives. If you can’t buy local, frozen produce is often a better alternative.
3. Store your food in glass or ceramic: Plastic contains dangerous chemicals such as BPA and phthalates that can leak into your food. Also avoid microwaving in plastic or with plastic wrap, drinking from plastic cups or containers (especially for babies). Glass or stainless steel would be superior even to those constainers marked BPA free.
4. Avoid cooking on non-stick teflon pans. Teflon contains chemicals that can leak into your food as well as into the air you, your family and animals breathe. It actually comes with a warning to “avoid high heat” which is just silly since it is cookware made to be used on heated. Just think about that smell that comes from heating non-stick pans. That is the release of chemicals you do not want to inhale. Alternatives include stainless steel or an even better option would be cast iron pans (yes like the one your grandma used).
5. Char-grilled also grills your insides. I know all you bar-b-q lovers will hate me for this one but the char on your char-grilled foods is actually toxic to the body. In short, just don’t be the one at the bar-b-q asking for the burnt piece!