[OutsiderFan]

It is relatively easy to grow vegetables organically.  It's an entirely different story for fruit, particularly in the northeast where it can get quite humid and buggy. 

As with many things in life, consumers say they want pesticide-free produce, but then when they see what it looks like, they don't want to buy it because it doesn't look pretty.  As someone who has a friend with a family fruit farm, I can tell you it's the truth.  If they sell a peach or apple that has a funny looking color on it, people won't buy it.  My choice is to eat local, to support local farmers, and to get produced that has been harvested within the last couple days.  It tastes infinitely better than anything you get in the grocery store, especially peaches and nectarines.  Apples, plums, and berries tend to store and travel better.

It seems the bigger issue might be GM food.  There is going to be a ballot initiative on the ballot in California this November that would require labeling of all products made with GM food.  The Monsantos of the world are going to spend a fortune trying to defeat it, and they will scare people into thinking all it does is raise food prices. 

They don't want people to know that corn, for example, is genetically engineered to produce a pesticide.  Consumers don't care, but GM food, produced from manufactured seed, is like incest.  The same genes mixing weaken a species.  Diversity makes stronger life forms.  And so it is with corn and other crops, like strawberries and now this ridiculous genetically engineered apple designed not to turn brown when exposed to air.  You want that, buy a Cortland apple that exists naturally.

I refuse to buy feedlot beef because cows fed corn get sores in their bodies and are given antibiotics to fend them off.  They are passed through the meat and into humans, who then are so exposed to antibiotics that they can become immune to antibiotics to fight off bacterial infections.  Free range chickens have a little bit tougher meat because when the chickens are allowed to run around, they get more muscle.  But because when they do, they eat bugs, they are more nourished and as a result actually taste better than caged chickens.

So organic may not be the "cat's meow" and may have limited nutritional benefits, but the organic mindset (trying to eat naturally produced food as much as possible, and more locally produced food), is definitely more beneficial to humans and animals. 

[OutsiderFan]

It is relatively easy to grow vegetables organically.  It's an entirely different story for fruit, particularly in the northeast where it can get quite humid and buggy. 

As with many things in life, consumers say they want pesticide-free produce, but then when they see what it looks like, they don't want to buy it because it doesn't look pretty.  As someone who has a friend with a family fruit farm, I can tell you it's the truth.  If they sell a peach or apple that has a funny looking color on it, people won't buy it.  My choice is to eat local, to support local farmers, and to get produced that has been harvested within the last couple days.  It tastes infinitely better than anything you get in the grocery store, especially peaches and nectarines.  Apples, plums, and berries tend to store and travel better.

It seems the bigger issue might be GM food.  There is going to be a ballot initiative on the ballot in California this November that would require labeling of all products made with GM food.  The Monsantos of the world are going to spend a fortune trying to defeat it, and they will scare people into thinking all it does is raise food prices. 

They don't want people to know that corn, for example, is genetically engineered to produce a pesticide.  Consumers don't care, but GM food, produced from manufactured seed, is like incest.  The same genes mixing weaken a species.  Diversity makes stronger life forms.  And so it is with corn and other crops, like strawberries and now this ridiculous genetically engineered apple designed not to turn brown when exposed to air.  You want that, buy a Cortland apple that exists naturally.

I refuse to buy feedlot beef because cows fed corn get sores in their bodies and are given antibiotics to fend them off.  They are passed through the meat and into humans, who then are so exposed to antibiotics that they can become immune to antibiotics to fight off bacterial infections.  Free range chickens have a little bit tougher meat because when the chickens are allowed to run around, they get more muscle.  But because when they do, they eat bugs, they are more nourished and as a result actually taste better than caged chickens.

So organic may not be the "cat's meow" and may have limited nutritional benefits, but the organic mindset (trying to eat naturally produced food as much as possible, and more locally produced food), is definitely more beneficial to humans and animals.