Organic Food is Better

Unfortunately the unfair higher costs of organic foods makes it difficult for everyone to benefit from them.

Welfare economics theory holds that sometimes private activities can impose social costs upon others. Industrial agriculture is widely considered to impose social costs through pesticide pollution and nitrate pollution. Further, agriculture uses large amounts of water, a scarce resource. Some economists argue that taxes should be levied on agriculture, or that organic agriculture, which uses little pesticides and experiences relatively little nitrate runoff, should be encouraged with subsidies. In the United States, 65% of the approximately $16.5 billion in annual subsidies went to the top 10% of farmers in 2002 because subsidies are linked to certain commodities. On the other hand, organic farming received $5 million for help in certification and $15 million for research over a 5-year time period.

One of the reasons orgsanic foods are more exp[ensive is that there is limited production-- due to limited demand.

The demand is there, it actually has to do with what I touched on above and the farming practices involved in producing organic foods. Things would be much different if the organic farmers received more subsidies than commercial farmers do. But due to a lot of government ties involving commodities that is unlikely to happen. Have you had a chance to see the documentary Food Inc?

More is not always better. The media is ranting about obesity; perhaps our food is too cheap. I used to live near a Whole Foods and found they put fruit, veggies and grains (organic) on special, often putting the cost down to that of the local grocery chain stores. Consuming meat is much more costly than fruits/vegetables; lessen or discontinue eating meat allows budgeting for organic produce and gives less dollars to the corporate factory-farm cartels.

I like the idea of eating healthy meals, rather than stickling over whether to have organic potatoes after you've deep fried any nutrients out of them, choosing healthy meals would be a good start for anyone who is considering switching from hormone fed, gmo crops, chemically fertilized etc, otherwise I tend to think you'd be wasting your money.

Of course, Vegetarian is not synonymous with organic; I was suggesting a possible economic solution to the higher cost (sometimes) of organic produce. Food and nutrition is such a sticky subject (pun intended) because everyone is so defensive of what is familiar.