How did we go from swipe/swipe to scouring

I don't consider myself a naturalist or an organic person but I'm starting to be more and more concerned about the chemicals we come in contact with everyday. Some of these chemicals are elective- like things we choose to put on our faces or in our hair but others are out of our control- like in the foods we eat. And that's the scary part. They're everywhere.

Lately, every time I buy celery it's turned out to be a huge disappointment. I vigorously rub it under running water to clean it before eating and yet every time I take my first bite and it's like biting into a crisp, juicy stick of green pesticide disguised as celery.

After the first time this happened I assume it was operator error: me. So back to the sink I went to rescrub it.

No dice.

Didn't work.

I went as far as convincing myself that once I cut into the celery, I somehow unleashed an irreversible change to the composition of the celery where I opened the pores and embedded the chemicals further into it. Hey, in my head that was the only logical reason as to why I couldn't get the frickin' thing cleaned!

So out goes the whole package of celery.

And each time after that, I scrubbed harder and harder to make sure I was really getting it clean and each time I'd take two bites into my little green cyanide sticks and throw the entire stalk out.

Today, I tried a different approach.

I had a seriously hankering for some bumpless Bumps on a Log so I gave myself a peptalk about just how clean this celery needs to be. I don't want anything standing in my way of my bumpless Bumps on a Log, so I'm talking some seriously squeaky clean celery. I break out my Norwex vegetable scrubber washcloth (which is awesome by the way: https://www.norwexonline.com/shopping/proddetail.php?prod=20403) and SCOURED the hell out of that celery. There were stringy layers flying everywhere. My disposal looks like I scalped a poor defenseless green haired troll.

I take me first bite....

Ahhh {breath of relief}.

Finally.

Some celery that doesn't taste like a toxic popsicle. It may look funny since it's missing some vital stringy-ness but hey it's worth it.

Maybe it was just my naivety but I remember getting fruits and veggies from the store and simply swishing them under the water: swipe, swipe, rub, rub and you're good to go.

But now I feel like I need to boil my grapes before even consider eating them.

The easy solution of course would be to buy organic but I'm too poor frugal for that. As they inject more chemicals into our cows and spray more layers of insecticides on our fruits and veggies, I just may need to take that step. Now I just need an extra kidney to sell off in the blackmarket to make up for the $.89 per pound of bananas I'll be buying. Anyone know of a good dealer?