EWG's Food Scores

1. Research a favorite snack: Click on EWG's Food Scores and look up one of your favorite packaged snacks or desserts. What is the food score for his food? Click on Ingredient Concerns and read the specifics about the product's ingredients. What are some of the concerns listed and why? (Follow any specific links at the bottom to read about the concerns and report on these). Also, read EWG's Top Findings (below Ingredient Concerns) and report on the concerns that are listed there, as well as some of the positive aspects of the product. Find a snack that would be a better option than the one you chose, with a lower Food Score (this may take some trial and error). Hint: you can enter a general food category at the top and then Sort it by best to worst food scores. For example, you could enter rice cakes into the search field and it will bring up tons of brands of rice cakes — then you can sort to see which ones are best or worst based on their food score. Click on Ingredient Concerns and see how this snack compares to the original one. How is it a better option? List any positive aspects of the snack as well. Write at least two good paragraphs, single-spaced, concerning these two foods, and contrast why the second one is a better option than the first one. 2. Research a favorite personal care item: Click on EWG's Skin Deep Cosmetics Database (part way down on the homepage). Enter a personal care product that you use in the search field. What is the rating score for the product? Pick three or four of the ingredients. Click on each one, list the ingredient, list the rating score and write about some of the health concerns of each ingredient (such as endocrine disruption, allergies/immunotoxicity, developmental/reproductive toxicity, and some of other concerns listed below. As you did with the snack, pick a better option for your personal care product and compare and contrast the concerns between the two products, explaining why the second one is a better option than the first one. 3. Get familiar with the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen: From the home page, click on Food and then click on EWG's Shoppers' Guide to Pesticides in Produce. Explore the Dirty Dozen list and the Clean Fifteen list. Were you surprised at some of the fruits and vegetables that were listed as having lots of pesticides, or very few pesticides? Are there some that you eat on a regular basis that you now realize is full of dangerous chemicals? Will knowing this make an impact on whether you decide to buy some organic produce in the future?                                                              

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