In today’s edition of Grist, a reader queries advice columnist Umbra about the price of organic food:

How come it’s so expensive to go organic? I could swing it by myself by eating a bare minimum of food, but I’m charged with feeding consume-mass-quantity types who favor the traditional American diet, and they eat meat. I would be in debt buying just half the monthly food consumption. One would have to be rich to go organic.

The short answer?:

The usual answer to your question from organic proponents is: organic isn’t expensive, conventional is unrealistically cheap. Not that helpful, but it’s true. […]

Organic food is more expensive because it costs more to produce, has less support from the government, supply is less than demand, and in general we pay the true cost of food when we buy organic. When we buy conventional, we pay the fake cost of food.

Surf on over to Grist for a more detailed explanation!