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[quote=Anonymous][quote]To answer OP's question, I buy all organic 99% of the time. With the rare exception of wanting to make a specific recipe right then and not later (for the holidays, for example) I adapt and use what's available. I also buy fair-trade and avoid packaged food and "big organic" whenever possible. We also belong to a year-round organic CSA.

I don't necessarily believe that the food is more healthful, I buy organic primarily to support agricultural communities. At the very least I know that the farmers, workers, and neighbors are not being exposed to massive amounts of hazardous chemicals in order to produce my food. At best, my food is coming from smaller family or worker-owned farms and I am helping someone make a living and keep their property in their family. I grew up in a food farming community and it breaks my heart to see my grandparents' generation of farmers sell their land to large commercial growers who are stripping it by over-farming and just holding onto it long enough to make it valuable for developers.

So, I'd say: about as hardcore as they come. [/quote]

I agree with all of this, but I really don't think of it as "hardcore."  I just think of it as mindful, sensible shopping.  Trying to buy our food from non-chemical, non-industrialized sources whenever possible.  I do it partly for our health, and partly to support small agriculture or fair trade, but mainly I do it (1) to try to avoid poisoning the land and the groundwater for future generations, (2) to avoid the unknown health consequences of hormones, antibiotics, and genetically modified food, and (3) to stop contributing to the problem of antibiotic resistance, one of our most serious public health problems.

[Seriously, people need to get aware of this.  As the earlier poster said and the NYT recently published: 80% of the antibiotics consumed in America go into animal feed for non-sick animals.  You only need a sixth grader's knowledge of natural selection to understand how the proliferation of antibiotics in our environment encourages the development of antibiotic-resistant germs and diseases.  Doctors and hospitals are now seeing infections, such as staph infections, UTI's, and even STD's, that used to be routinely treatable with first-line antibiotics but now are resistant to the most powerful antibiotics we have.  Google "super gonorrhea" to get an idea.  Soon some of these infections may be capable of causing deadly epidemics once more, because they will no longer respond to the medications we have long taken for granted.]

Shopping organic is not at all as hard as it seems.  You don't have to join a CSA (though they're nice)--there are plenty of farmer's markets around.  You don't even need farmer's markets if they're hard to get to--you can get your shopping done in organic grocery stores.

The most important step is, get out of your giant neighborhood corporate-owned grocery store.  We do our shopping at My Organic Market (MOM)--they have about 7 stores in the metro area, I think.  They're nice little stores, where all the produce looks good, they have everything you want, and where the people come from all walks--not everyone wears birkenstocks and patchouli.  Unlike Whole Foods, pretty much everything in the store is organic, so you don't have to be as careful about reading the labels.  Also unlike Whole Foods, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg.  It's a little more expensive than Giant or Safeway, but just a little bit.  Once we cut out a lot of the boxed/processed convenience foods, and trim back on meat a little, we find we're spending about the same on groceries as we would in a non-organic world.  [/quote]

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