The return of warmer days with more sunlight hours means the return of life in the plant world.

We’re not quite there yet, but spring is in the air. It’s evidenced in the natural world by the appearance of crocus, new growth on trees, and in the grocery store by the return of delicate, leafy greens.

The beauty of preparing meals with alkaline-rich spring veggies is that the taste of the bounty of this incoming-season speaks for itself. Complicated recipes and flavor-enhancing sauces are not necessary.

Here are a couple of easy-to-make examples:

1. Wash a bunch of asparagus, snapping off the woody ends. Line a skillet with olive oil and heat it on high; toss in asparagus and move the skillet about so the stalks char-grill but don’t burn. Once tender, remove asparagus from the skillet and lay on a large plate or platter. Drizzle with lemon juice and season with cracked black pepper and salt. For additional color, you might like to grill a medley of vegetables, adding radishes and or organic bell pepper to the skillet with the asparagus.
2. Wash baby spinach leaves and an equal amount of arugula; toss into a bowl. Add a peeled avocado and gently mix into greens with enough olive or walnut oil to coat the greens; top with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and pistachio nuts.

To Serve: Present the plated asparagus and the spinach and arugula salad as a light meal with chunks of crusty bread; and to accompany the asparagus spears, you might like to serve sides for dipping.

Fresh produce, especially fresh vegetables, is a topic I frequently return to in my blog Market to Mouth. When grocery shopping on a budget for health and wellness, 80 percent of your purchases should come from the store’s periphery, starting with seasonal veggies and fruit followed by humanely-farmed meat, poultry, eggs, dairy, sustainable seafood, and dry bulk foods like grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes.

In other words, 80 percent of your groceries should be whole, unprocessed foods or “real foods”—the term coined by author Nina Planck in her book Real Food: What to Eat and Why.

On her blog, The Nourished Kitchen, Jennifer McGruther, recently challenged her readers to eat only “real food” for at least a month suggesting participants begin the challenge by purging their pantries of processed foods.

I think of processed foods as the remaining 20% of items that make up your grocery list: packaged, tinned, bottled, and frozen foods — products found in the middle aisles of the grocery store; i.e., the aisles I advocate spending as little time in as possible by way of staying on budget.

And with the recent news that much of Whole Foods 365-brand bags of frozen organic vegetables are grown in China, it’s yet another reason to stick to the periphery of the store where you can select fresh produce.

If it’s not within your budget to buy all-organic, fresh produce, consider conventionally grown produce that’s safe to buy. Feel free to print out the following list, I sourced it from the Vegetarian Times. Another great resource is Food News which offers an extensive list of fruits and vegetables containing pesticides.

Buy organic:

• Beets (thin-skinned veggies that grow underground absorb pesticides and heavy metals)
• Bell peppers (all colors – conventionally grown are likely to contain multiple pesticide residues)
• Carrots (are good at absorbing heavy metals from the soil)
• Celery (most likely to contain pesticide residues)
• Leafy greens i.e. lettuces, chard, collard greens, spinach (are grown low to the ground and are thus likely to have high pesticide residue levels)
• Cucumbers (highly toxic pesticides are used on conventionally grown cucumbers)
• Green beans (conventionally grown are sprayed multiply times with pesticides, herbicides and fungicides)
• Potatoes (especially russets are highly likely to contain pesticide residues)
• Winter squash (mild pesticides used, conventionally grown are acceptable if you don’t eat the skin)
• Almonds (toxic pesticides and herbicides used on almond trees)
• Peanuts (peanuts grow underground and are known to absorb toxins from the soil)
• Pecans (pecan trees tend to be sprayed frequently with pesticides, herbicides and miticides)

Okay to buy Conventional:

• Asparagus (does not appeal to many pests and so rarely treated with pesticides)
• Avocados (low pesticide residues and a thick skin make the conventionally grown okay)
• Broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage (pesticides don’t work well on these veggies thus few are used on them)
• Sweet Corn (though it may be sprayed with herbicides and some pesticides, it almost never contains pesticide residue, but buy local)
• Eggplant (selectively sprayed with minimally toxic pesticides thus it rarely contains pesticides residue)
• Garlic (has natural pest control and is rarely sprayed)
• Onions all varieties (like garlic has natural pest control and thus minimally sprayed)
• Rhubarb (rarely sprayed)
• Sweet potatoes (pesticides are used sparingly on these)
• Tomatoes (buy local)
• Zucchini (doesn’t tolerate pesticides/herbicides)
• Dried Beans (beans are sprayed with insecticides but are then soaked and washed and boiled so residues are likely removed – buy local)
• Cashews (are grown in tropical locales where pesticides are rarely used)
• Macadamia nuts (few pesticides are used on macs)
• Sesame seeds (organic is better but pesticide residues are minor in non-organic sesame products)