When it comes to meat and dairy, absolutely. When it comes to vegetables, we try to get them from the farmers market.

I grow organic because it tastes so much better than anything available in the grocery store. I like the flavorful organic meats and chickens far more than anything from the factory feedlots. Meat tastes like meat and not a flavorless hunk of leather. Whenever financially possible, I go organic. If the flavor is superior, then the nutrient content follows.

It's not like this is the first study to show that organically grown vegetables are no more nutritious than conventionally grown vegetables. Vitamin content of a given fruit or vegetable is set by genetics, not by soil. Mineral content is determined by soil and is slightly higher in organically grown vegetables, but it is not considered nutritionally significant.

Nutrition may well be the same but the amount of chemicals you are putting into your body is not. By not taking this into consideration, its very misleading information.

Once my daughter began eating solids, I found that I slowly shifted my food dollars on organic produce and meats than I did in the past. To me, it isn't necessarily what's in the produce as in my opinion, any fruit or vegetable is better an none, but rather what isn't in them. This means we eat less meat, chicken and fish than what we used to but I think the quality of our food is much better. This despite having my salary cut 15% this past year and my husband getting laid off and out of work for 3 months earlier this year. What we feed our family is just non-negotiable.

New Scientist has it right -- nutrutionally they might not be much different, no. but with conventionally grown, you're getting added pesticides, which the Trib showed.

the problem is that Americans should be eating more fruits and vegetables in general, regardless of organic/non-organic.

as for myself, I go local first, then organic. price is generally not a factor, unless the organic vs. non-organic in the supermarket is 3x the price.

My first thought was whether they compared the exact same variety of each type of produce. Aren't certain species bred to withstand the chemicals conventional farmers use? Seems to me that an heirloom variety would have a totally different nutritional content. I wrote more about it here.

I will not go out of my way to buy Certified Organic.

I prefer to buy foods for home that are organically grown though. If they are grown without pesticides on farms that's good enough for me.

Certified Organic can still apply to factory farmed, imported, meats and vegetables. I like the idea of eating food from real farms.

I eat foods that are across the board but am trying to focus in on foods that come from sustainable, pesticide and chemical free farms. But they don't have to carry a stamp. If the operation is small enough I can trust the farmer.

I don't worry about buying organic foods. Frankly, they're too costly for someone on a strict budget. I agree there's no nutritional difference, although of course pesticides are the primary reason people care so much about organic v. non-organic anyway.

I've stopped worry about organic vs. non-organic. I try to buy all my produce and meats at the farmer's market, where things are raised locally and sustainably. I would prefer pesticide and synthetic fertilizer free, as I do not want to contribute to the pollution and contamination of our resources.

I am a vegetarian and I subscribe to a local certified organic CSA. While organic would be the ideal for me, in terms of environment not nutrition, I also am the bread winner of my house hold so I have to be mindful of my budget. I usually do pretty well with the CSA but it's more veggies than fruit. So for fruit, it comes down to cost, so non-organic usually wins that one.

Luckily, the Organic 100% Whole Wheat pasta at the grocery store is usually on sale and that's as far as I try to go for packaged foods.

I buy organic things if they are accessible and reasonably priced, but most things I purchase are not organic.

My reaction when I heard this on the local news was that people buy organic for all sorts of reasons - because they taste better, no pesticides, environmental reasons, etc. - not necessarily because they thought they had more nutrients. I don't think this study is going to change anyone's shopping habits.

I strive to eat local as much as possible. I aim for organics but will likely choose a local, conventionally produced food over an imported organic food. I'm lucky though, I have two farmers markets a week to choose from, and that's only including those I can ride my bike to.

As a biologist, I've read the studies, and I've seen what the pesticides do to the environment. Most pesticides (not all, but most) are water soluble, meaning they rinse off. You give your fruit & veggies a good washing, you will get almost every last bit of them off your food, so for me, it's a lot less about that, and more about 1. the audacity of these companies to say that their chemicals are not harmful to animals, the environment, or humans; 2. the audacity of these companies to essentially plant board members on the EPA (no longer) so that their products are approved; 3. the health of the environment. I as an individual can't do much, but I can vote with my money and spend it on organics and local, no-spray CSAs and other farmers and not on conventional farmed items.

I buy organic when it's an available option. I wish it was the norm, but we're not there yet.

I never buy organic. The only thing I generally try to support is antibiotic-free animal husbandry, since the abuse of antibiotics is a critical public health issue. Produce might taste a little better when organic, and I can see free-range diets greatly improving the taste of the animal's meat, milk/eggs, etc., but most of the time the expense is just not worth it.

Partly, that's because whenever I see organic produce, it seems like such a snobbish expression of Western privilege. Without the agricultural revolution introduced by synthetic fertilizers, soil would long ago have been exhausted of nutrients, current world populations would be unsustainable, and the poor would be even hungrier. I'm actually quite thankful about the industrialization of agriculture, since it allows for the cities and lifestyles we all enjoy today in the Western world, so I'm all for supporting conventional farming with its supplements and newly bred, industrial-friendly varietals.

I second the argument of suchire. I think that while the original idea of organic food was good, the actual implementation isn't. Actually, it has become much more of a fad.
*Many organic foods are produced in large farms. Organic foods are being industrialized.
*Organic doesn't mean no pesticides/no fertilizers. It simply means organic pesticides/ and fertilizers. And sometimes those organic products are more harmful to the environment.
*There is not enough land in this planet to support organic agriculture. A switch towards organic farming would just starve people to death. If you think about it, if more land needs to be used to produce, is it really reducing our footprint?
* And quite frankly, the taste thing it's most in our brains. It is only a label. I have had organic fruits that are simply tasteless.

I just saw the Penn & Teller B*it TV program about organic food. It's worth taking a look. They argument is that organic food is becoming more of a religion based on faith.

I completely disagree with the two opinions above me. I just graduated with an emphasis in Sustainable Agriculture (so bear with me!), but the opinion that organic agriculture is an elitist idea is contradictory, considering that traditional agriculture (you know, what generations before GMOs and the Green Revolution did...aka thousands of years of agriculture) were organic. Of course the prices of organic foods are higher, but that is because conventional foods are heavily subsidized by government (thus you aren't actually paying the true value of the food, and THAT is the giant issue of international trade injustices and poverty..we are importing conventional foods from foreign farmers that are being paid pennies. And we enjoy the luxuries of the Western world because we engage in these completely unfair practices).
The irony of the criticism that soils would become infertile, world populations unstable, and the poor hungrier is exactly what is happening right now. The Green Revolution that brought on these industrial practices was a quick fix and completely unsustainable.
I agree with the opinion that organic agriculture is no longer matching its ideals, but again that is because large, industrial agricultural businesses have realized that there is a ton of money in organic foods. These businesses are accustomed to efficiency and making as much money as possible, not the wellness and future fertility of the land.

My argument against conventional farming is the big unknowns about these practices: we don't yet understand the repercussions of digesting pesticides and GMOs. I try to buy as much organic as possible, but it is expensive. However, I have found that the most expensive things in my shopping cart are typically processed foods, and once I eliminate many of these, I can actually buy all organic and pay less than I would have originally.

Elitist is not contradictory with traditional. After all, traditional agriculture happened to support cultures in which the average lifespan of a person was < 50 years, where access to healthy foods was the purview of the nobility and nouveau riche, and where most people toiled for subsistence. Kind of like most of the poor world. That traditional agriculture is associated with government subsidies does not make organic agriculture any better. What happens with organic? The overseas farmers get paid *less,* because organic food spoils more easily in transport, and so tends to require more expensive transportation, leading to consumers buying local, leading to less revenue for farmers overseas. And if we really went organic, do you think the government would subsidize the US industry any less?

As a side point about GMOs: for consumers, they are safe. It's just altered DNA, you consume massive amounts of foreign DNA every time you eat a once-living thing (plant or animal). To the consumer, GMOs are the same as bred organisms. The only concern I can possibly see is ecological side effects of cross pollination, but that's not a consumer safety issue as much as it is an environmental issue.

Most pesticides in use are probably safe, but I agree, there are probably more effects than we know about. But again, these pesticides are regulated, and are almost always water soluble, and so wash off easily. In reference to the above, GMOs can allow for safer pesticides by expanding the range of available substances for use, allowing the crops to resist previously unusable pesticides.