There are several reasons people choose organic, one major one being the avoidance of pesticide exposure.

I was reading about a study started in 1998, where children’s urine was tested for pesticide residue. It was found that the highest levels were in children in the metropolitan areas, not the farms, leading the researcher to believe the exposure came mostly from food or home use.
One child in the study had no signs of pesticide residue and they learned that this child’s family ate organic food almost exclusively, and so began the scientific evidence that an organic food diet reduces the pesticide exposure in children. When results were published in March 2003, it showed that children who ate mostly organic food had one-sixth the pesticide metabolites of those who ate non-organic food.

What I found most encouraging was after these results were found, they did further tests of substituting organic foods for a conventional diet in children for five days and could find no pesticide residue in their urine. When the conventional diet was reintroduced, they returned.

Science doesn’t know what effect pesticides have over a lifetime, but we know we can get them out of our system immediately, if we eat organic food. Many mothers just know this instinctively and don’t need a lifetime of scientific evidence to feed their children organic food. I am excited to know there is something we can do that has an immediate effect on our health and well-being.