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I actually just made a sour plum cake with cream cheese frosting that had organic raisins in it which were superb - it was practically an accident, but I will go out of my way to get those again! LOL.

In principle, I also buy organic whenever possible and affordable, but I will generally not pay more than a dollar or two more for an organic product - it's just not practical on a normal budget. That said, there are always organic things on sale and I buy sale items all the time. I tend not to be too brand fixated unless there's a concrete benefit.

Things I will not budge on however are milk and strawberries. These must be organic for me. Also lettuce. When you think about what it means for a product to be organic and how the good stewardship of the land is better served by such practices, how the animals and the oceans are stabilized when we choose to avoid chemicals and stay with a natural production method and non-factory farm methods, versus the damage of non-organic farming - well, there's pretty clearly a mandate to go organic whenever possible.

I don't think organic oatmeal is at all silly. But $10 a pound for organic chicken - up to ten times the normal price - is just too rich for my blood. I would say that if it's on sale - again with the sale! - I will buy organic meat, but otherwise I try to go for natural - ie: free range, no hormones or anti-biotics, pasture fed, minimal processing. Fortunately I live in an agricultural county in California where a lot of this is the way it's been done for over a century and that's great.

I'm like Tobey above, I buy organic as much as possible, but won't blow my grocery budget to stay all organic.

bobbob, I am right there with you. I buy what I can at local farmer's markets and i shop where there are butchers but organic holds no special magic for me at this time in my life.

It's also about knowing that for every organic item you buy, there is that much less pesticide and fertilizer being used, which pollutes our water, promotes red tide, kills fish and birds. Maybe that's not important to some, but it is to me.

I'm in the "as much as I can, when I can" camp. Meaning that I'll buy organic when it's affordable, for as many items as I can afford. But when I'm at the end of my monthly budget, I don't cry over the non-organic produce I buy to be able to have some fresh veggies in my diet until pay day.

Also, I generally go to the trouble to buy locally grown organic produce for canning and jams, so I'll go all organic there and make sure everything else I put in (sugar and lemon juice for jam) is organic.

The more I can support the movement, hopefully the more it will grow. Vote with your wallet, people.

I am chronically ill, eating as natural and organic as possible means a lot for my body. I have been able to gain 40+ badly needed pounds after almost dying and weighing 78 lbs. (at 5'8") 2 years ago thanks to being able to recognize what my body will accept and what is best for me.

I won't have the time in this world that many do, so I feel that I need to do as right for my failing body as I can. This is not always feasible living in a small town, and not always being able to get out or prepare food when I'm too ill to do so, but I try.

Nope. Nada. Not a chance. Tried organic veggies. To put it bluntly....Not Impressed! Would never pay 3 times as much for them. I like farmers markets for the variety, but won't go out of my way for one. They are seasonal as in not now because it is too hot (Florida). We do grow our own herbs. I've actually have a rosemary "hedge" that was really unexpected when we planted one tiny little sprig 21/2 years ago and alot of basil, oregano and parsley, but to be honest growing our own is simply for the convenience. If we didn't have it in the back yard, I'd just go buy it at the grocery store.

Not at all. I won't pay that much for something that isn't any better then the regular stuff.

I'm in similar situation as @bobcatsteph3; I've had health problems for years, and spent the better part of last year bedridden (at one point, it was so bad that I didn't have the energy to even bathe myself). As a result, I ate a lot of instant and processed food, because the Other can't really cook and I didn't have enough energy to cook. After being hospitalized earlier this year, a doctor suggested I try altering my diet to avoid processed foods and buy as organically as I could. I thought he was ridiculous - but you know what? Eight months later I'm no longer bedridden, I'm able to hold down a job for the first time in years, and I'm down to two prescriptions.

These days, I would say that 80% of my grocery bill is local and organic/free-range, and if I could find the other 20% organically, that would be as well. Is it expensive? Surprisingly, not really. Making food at home from raw ingredients has reduced my grocery bill for certain essentials (a loaf of homemade organic whole-wheat bread is about $0.50, as opposed to $3 at the grocery). In other cases, buying directly from farmers or in bulk results in prices equal or less than the grocery store. The hassle might not be worth it for some people, but it's made all the difference for me.

Buying a variety of healthy food that tastes good is the number one priority--buying organic would mean I would have to cut back on the produce I love in many instances. I buy organic by chance, because I eat lots of healthy food, and the only time I make a point of buying organic is to avoid high fructose corn syrup and/or too many additives. However, simply buying food with short ingredient lists is more important than the 'organicness' of it

I buy as much organic as possible. In the summer, I buy from my local farm market. I do not like preservatives or chemicals. Foods that come with their own packaging, like bananas, I just buy what looks the best. Eggs and milk are never anything but organic.

With that said, DH pokes fun at me for being so concerned about the foods we eat, when I will pour a glass wine in a NY minute! ;-D

We shop for organic too. I also do my best to buy local. My grocery store carries a lot of local organic produce and they feature local & organic meats and poultry, which is great. We feel better eating food that is produced minimally & naturally without hormones, antibiotics and other junk. Our dogs also eat organically. I know it costs more, but I feel that it is better for the environment, supports sustainable farming, etc. We also use natural cleaning products and soap.

Can you taste the difference...we think so. The food tastes much better. We have friends that always comment how much better the food is when they come to our house to eat.

@cybercita. Duh. I knew that! (slaps self on forehead). I have a mental block between baking powder and baking soda. Not only can I never remember which one goes into the making of the other, I also have to read the container to make sure I'm grabbing the right one.

On the other hand, I have my AP flour and my bread flour in unmarked containers, and I never forget which is what.

I was thinking someone was making their own baking SODA.

I need to reboot my brain again, I think.

Given my budget and a number of other things, I'm apt to roll my eyes at people who take organic to a freakish level. I'm probably just being obnoxious because I'd do the same if I had the money, but for the most part all of my produce is organic. Every Saturday I go to my local farmer's market and stock up on all kinds of goodies that are locally grown. Aside from that, anything else I get that's organic is just a plus.

@cambriana - Actually, for what it's worth, the USDA does regulate the "organic" label for food; in addition to not being sprayed with pesticides or grown with petroleum-based fertilizers like conventional crops, no organic food can be genetically-modified, which is huge, as about 80% of conventionally-grown soy and corn (and a growing proportion of wheat, fruit, and vegetables) are GMO, and these do not have to be labeled as such. (And of course, we have zero idea what genetic modification will do to our bodies in the long term, but experiments on lab animals have been quite scary.) Organic animal foods come from animals fed organic feed and who have received no antibiotics or hormones; every conventionally-raised animal receives both...and again, this is a relatively new development in human history, so we don't understand what the long-term effects on health will be - that is, unless we're seeing them now, in the constantly escalating rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune diseases.

Though of course now that "organic" is a marketable term, food corporations are constantly trying to undermine it, and have succeeded a little bit. Organic foods don't always taste better, but that's not why they're worth the extra money: organic (or small-farmed mostly-organic) growing is simply the only sustainable way to produce food. Corporate monocultures will eventually cease operation, either because the soil becomes so stripped it simply won't produce food anymore, or because consumers and legislators force corporations to steward our soil more responsibly. I don't have a great feeling it will be the latter.

I kinda get what cambriana is saying--I think one of the problems with buying something automatically because you see the word "organic" is that lately there's been a huge surge in big business organic. You're buying a lot of products that are manufactured by companies like Kraft, which are completely pushing small, family farms out of business.

I'm happy to see some people say that buying locally is more important than buying organic--Whole Foods has great stuff, yeah, but people like my dad (who farms a small, pesticide-free but can't afford to be certified organic farm) just cannot compete. Yes, it's important to make sure we take care of the environment and our bodies by purifying the ingredients in our food, but it's also equally important to keep those small family farms afloat, or we'll be overrun by big business, "organic factories."

Organic farms use insecticides. Rotenone and Pyrethrin are two common ones and they are not innocuous.

@cambriana - to become "certified organic" is a long, expensive and extremely strict process. The soil has to be purified for 7-8 years, for a start. And DavidinCT is certainly correct that organic farms use pesticides just as much as non-organic farms do. The problems usually start AFTER certification - nobody's out there testing organic produce from a farm after it's been certified to make sure it's 100% organic, so for the most part, it runs on the honor system.

However, I'm a little confused as to why you think "so many people have gotten sick" from organic produce. I've never heard of that happening, if it has, it might have something to do with the misapplication of organic pesticides, but again, that doesn't mean it's not organic.