(November 6, 2009) -- You slip on your eco-friendly moccasins, get into your Prius and drive down to the nearest Whole Foods, eager to do your weekly produce shopping; you can hold your head up high knowing you shop organic. The thing is, you just have no idea why you buy it—they say it’s better for you.

While organic food has crept more towards the mainstream in the past few years, it still retains an air of elitism; can you honestly imagine Joe six-pack going out of his way to buy organic squash (which looks even weirder than regular squash)? Sure, the tree huggers and health nuts go crazy over it, but the question comes to mind: what’s the difference?

While the USDA admits that farmers of organic produce use more environment-friendly farming practices, the tangible health benefits are few and far between. Any perception in health benefits almost resembles a placebo effect—benefits are merely a product of the mind.

And then there’s the question of cost. Inefficient farming practices and stringent government regulation raise the price of production to a point where producers need to pass the buck to consumers, effectively raising prices.

Now that’s all fine in the capitalistic sense, but if you pay more for one product than for another product, don’t you want to see results? Instead you get identical (and more expensive) or oddly shaped versions of your favorite veggies.

Conventional farmers use pesticides to reduce the risk of contamination, without which crops and consumers are left more susceptible to disease.

And for those blasting traditional farming practices for their use of chemicals to ward off disease, the USDA upholds that pesticide exposure poses a minimal health risk at worst—it never hurts to wash your produce though.