This is part three of a 10-part series on how changing ones eating habits may be the most accessible and impactful way to improve the world.

With the USDA seemingly downing tranquilizers from big corporations and lowering organic standards by tossing concepts like soil protection, pollution, consumer health, animal rights, and farmers rights to the wind, we appear to have reached a fork in the road – continue paying more for organic (while demanding its revival!), or begin to sink our teeth back into the experimental fields of commercial produce.

Hopefully the answer is as clear to you as gigantic neon “organic” signs amidst the night of a new moon. The rejection of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and genetically modified organisms is no small feat, and is one that is definitely worth our extra voting dollars.

As Rachel Carson explains in her incredible book, “Silent Spring,” corporations found ways to cash in on weapons leftover from World-War II by utilizing them as “pesticides” and “synthetic fertilizers” on food crops. This monetary maneuver has left us significant increases in pests (“super” pests at that), as well as a cascading effect of health problems within our own bodies and the body of this planet (which then, eventually return back to our bodies).

An exemplary study on the ability of pesticides to wreak havoc within our bodies was done comparing two groups of genetically-similar Mexican children raised in nearly identical environments with the exception that one group was near to an agricultural valley where multiple pesticides were used, (as is the case with our conventional farms). Among poor social skills and other troubled tasks, when asked to draw a person, the exposed children drew lines not even slightly resembling a person, while the unexposed kids easily drew simple human representations.

Pesticides aside, when considering which produce path to take, one must reflect on the E.P.A ‘s allowance of toxic waste in fertilizers, as well as sewage sludge (yes, that sanitationally-sinful porridge) and other unmentionables to be used in the growth of non-organic crops. All in all, you get what you pay for. For me, paying for truly nutritious foods and a vote against the massive experiment taking place across our lands and in our guts is well worth the extra costs of organic.