Why Organic?

It's a personal choice of course and if you don't shop at an exclusive organic or natural store sometimes the prices are better. Most chains carry organic selections. My goal isn't necessarily to look for organic or natural food so much as to steer clear of too many products with tons of preservatives, colors or other additives. I happen to agree with the fact that those types of products could be causes of cancer and/or other diseases.

Independent and Judy, I totally understand, it is way expensive to go full-boar. If you really are wanting to go organic, then limit your organic purchases to what they call the dirty dozen. Fruits and veggies that you eat as they grow (apples, tomatoes) have pesticides directly on the surface, and are the most beneficial to buy organic. I buy lettuce, broccoli, apples, cukes, and a few others that i occasionally eat raw. It adds up to a few more bucks per trip, so I just won't eat fast food to compensate for the money (which is awful for you anyway...)
as far as the meat, depending on where you live, you can find farmers around you to get both beef and chicken, it just might be a matter of how much meat you can store. where i live, you can go in with a friend and buy a half a cow (1/4 each) that's grass fed, way low fat, free range, for about $3 a pound, for everything from tbones to burger. cheap cheap steaks, and the best ones you will ever taste. there are lots of people out there who enjoy raising chickens too, it just might take some effort tracking one down.
the growth hormones are way scary though, there are tons of stories about little girls who drink milk and have boobs and periods at the age of 7. WTF.
PS scrubbing veggies will only get the outside stuff off. whatever is in the soil to control pests/weeds/growth will be in the fruit/veggie and cannot be washed off... something to think about.

I would love to go organic, but I can't afford it. Like Miss Independent above, I'm a college student who's more worried about paying the bills and buying my books for class than about paying for the organic foods. Instead, I'm just trying to reduce my consumption of meat and remember to wash my vegetables. But I would like to say to those who aren't slighted by the hormone rumores- please, just compare the size of an individual conventional chicken breast to that of an organic/free range chicken breast. Just by looking at the size you can tell that those chickens are getting something they don't naturally come by.

I understand organic is suppossed to be better for you and all that, but have you seen the rediculous amounts they charge for organic food? $7 for organic cereal? That's twice what regular cereal is. $1.25 for organic yogurt when Yoplait is $.50 a carton? and don't even get me started on how organic meat and produce cost TWICE what the conventional kinds do. I'm a college student on a shoe string budget and my fiance and I are just starting out in our life together. We care about our health and all, but we care more abut paying our bills. Maybe if the organic farmers and food produces could get their prices a little closer to what we pay for conventional foods, more people would start eating organic. As of right now, I think they are running a raquet and grossly overcharging consumers for products that logicially, should cost less to produce considering they don't have to buy pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, etc. So why is the food more expensive? I feel like they are scamming us and then barraging us with fear that if we don't eat organic we will die of cancer so we will spend 9$ a pound on organic cherries. ( That was the honest to God price I saw at the grocery store today) Not hating on the organic lifestyle or anything, but I'm not wasting money I don't have when research shows you can get the same nutrients out of healthy conventional food as you can organic foods. Many conventional meat and dairy producers even offer antibiotic and hormone free options now! I see the point about the chemicals, but you are exposed to chemicals EVERYWHERE you go and EVERYTHING you do, unless of course you live in a bubble. So for now, I'll continue scrubbing my fruits and veggies with a produce brush to help with the pesticides, and spend a LOT less on my grocery bill!

Organic is, by definition :relating to, or derived from living organisms. It's only in recent years that the term has come to mean foods that are raised without non-organic fertilizer or pesticides. Pardon me, but I'd rather take my chances with food that has been treated with inorganic methods than to worry about e. coli or salmonella in my salad. Don't put poop on my spinach! And if you want hormone-free milk, drink soy milk. Cow's naturally produce the hormones that all the uproar is about. I saw a sign that said, "Our Cows Eat Organic Grass." Does that mean that some farmers are feeding their cows Astro-Turf? And yes, I have experience in the dairy proccess. Let's worry more about feeding the hungry & less about nitpicking.