Why?

I thought the same things when my store opened up next to an Organic Cooperative market. I thought - 'hmmmm - 6 dollars for a gallon of milk and 4 for 12 eggs - go fuck yourself around that corner'

Then I actually started eating the stuff - and miraculously, there is actual flavor to some of the stuff I've been consuming for a long time, that I never knew existed. I don't buy into the whole 'organic everything - or else we're gonna die 30 seconds earlier than we would' bullish, but stuff does taste better.

Also I'm a VAGitarian, so most of those hippy organic markets usually cater well to our kind also, so it's not as crap as i first thought.

NC - some waffles (only organic wheat ones though)

'Certified organic' produce is not de-vitalized and does not contain any toxins. I buy it for home-use but eat whatever they got at restaurants without sweating about the difference. Only some types of certified organic fruits and vegetables are stupid expensive. I'm poor and I can still afford to eat organic produce. NC.

It fucking tastes better is why.

More nutritious, tastes better, and not covered in poison.

There is no comparison between a properly grown organic tomato and the crap they sell in the supermarkets. None. I've avoided tomato's all my life because I was subjected to the vile shit they peddle in fast food places and supermarkets, and only relatively recently had a properly grown tomato. I feel cheated.

Not at all crap. We have the cheapest food in the world, largely due to the corn/farm lobby being able to make "food" out of any junky bullshit they choose to feed us.

When you pay $4 for a gallon of milk you are getting a full, ten pound *gallon* of moo juice - raised, milked, stored, shipped, inventoried, and rung up by a cashier, for four measley bucks.
How do you make that cheaper? By dropping the quality of the product. That's the only way. I'm amazed that it's only 4 bucks!

Conventional food hasn't kept up with inflation. Even when you pay extra for organic, you are paying less for your meals than your parents did.

There's no free lunch, but people are trying, and the way their doing it is by feeding you shit.

The bad news is that companies like Wal Mart are trying to get the term "organic" redefined, so they can start selling food labeled that way, while still making a profit. Basically, they want to make the numbers work. Then they can sell food to suckers who will think they are buying what we've come to understand is "organic," when they are not. That's the kind of insidious lobbying that happens in the middle of the night, while we're focused on bigger stuff like Iraq, bitching about taxes, or complaining that the president is getting blow jobs.

I don't think about it when I'm out to eat, or at friend's houses, but given the choice, I'll spend extra on food because, you know, it's food. I'm not too interested in economizing in the this category, for both health and taste reasons.

-A

NOT CRAP. It tends to taste better, it preserves genetic diversity so as to prevent major diseases/parasitic infestations/etc. from wiping out an entire crop, and it generally tends to benefit non-corporate farms due to the whole "not paying the mega-corporation for modified seeds" thing.

There's definitely a WF when it comes to meat, however. As an example, since cattle and cows cannot be treated with antibiotics and still remain organic, they're either moved to non-organic farms or slaughtered for non-organic meat when they become sick. I don't have a problem with this, but it sort of betrays the healthy utopian lifestyle that everyone seems to associate with organic foods.

Also, there's no real guarantee that bio-engineered crops won't cross with organics genetics and mingle.

I love finding "organic" fruits and vegetables with the requisite 4-digit sticker on them, indicating that they're bio-engineered and that the design is patented. It happens all of the time around here.

Most important when buying produce, esp. leafy things that collect pesticide or pulpy stuff that absorbs toxins.

Organic food is great stuff, but the USDA standards are quite lax. Its also rather stupid that often organic food is coming extreme distances, when similar stuff is being grown relatively locally. Hmm.... perhaps the same type of people concerned about toxins/pesticides/GMO might also be concerned with buying locally and not having their lettuce cross the ocean.

Yeah, why not? As long as you're eating your vegetables.