This is an organic pepper that I grew; it's organic because I didn't care enough to do anything to it.As a chemist (sort of), the word organic has a very specific meaning: relating or belonging to the class of chemical compounds having a carbon basis. So, I'm organic. You're organic. Your dog is organic. And pretty much all foodstuffs are organic.
To the USDA, organic has a different meaning: foods that are grown without antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, irradiation or bioengineering. That's it. It does not mean that the food is healthier than foods that do not bear the apparent gleaming gilded halo of a sticker that says "Organic." It has no relationship to processing. You can process the bejeezus out of ingredients that were grown without pesticides.
If you had a batch of organic corn, you could make organic high fructose corn syrup, and I think we can all agree that's just as bad as regular high fructose corn syrup. There are organic toaster pastries, but I can assure you that regular old oatmeal would be a better choice.
Organic can mean a lot of things, but it is not a synonym for healthy.
