Do not eat carbohydrates. Eat more red meat. Do not eat red meat. Eat more carbohydrates. Drink more milk. Stay away from white meat. Only drink this milk. Don’t eat that kind of lettuce. Just take this pill, or maybe have surgery? America is obsessed with dieting, and is in constant search for an easy solution to its weight problem.

Organic eating is the best solution to these problems. Organic farming maintains healthy soil by rotating crops and composting dead plants. In addition, the environment is not taxed with hazardous pesticides. Fortunately, consumers are showing they favor organic farming: it is the fastest growing segment of U.S. agriculture, with sales rising 21 percent a year according to “The Newman’s Own Organics Guide to a Good Life,” published 2003.

When choosing what food to eat, the ingredients should be read as if they were a drug prescription. Nothing is more valuable than food. Food gives us energy. Food is life. But food has been dramatically altered since the dawn of agriculture.

It has become genetically modified, loaded with preservatives, nurtured with pesticides, and enriched with a spectrum of hard to pronounce chemical additives. In a college town such as DeKalb, where students have limited finances, it is becoming more common for them to consume processed foods. This diet is becoming increasingly dangerous for us.

Processed foods simply lack the nutritional value organic foods possess. Enriched flour, wheat or gain means fewer nutrients because most of the grain’s nutrients are destroyed in the refining process, according to Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen in their 2005 book, “You: The Owners Manual.” Processed foods are cheaper to manufacture and have a longer shelf life than organic foods, but in order for the shelf life to be extended, the integrity of the food is jeopardized, and certain oils become hydrogenated (a process which turns the oil into a solid at room temperature). Hydrogenated oils prevent food from going bad, but are very bad for you.

Even more alarming than hydrogenated oil are genetically modified organisms, (GMO’s) products that are made when microbiologists mix the DNA of different species. We have no idea if this technology is beneficial or detrimental, but we will find out sooner or later, as we are the guinea pigs in this experiment. But if you want to guarantee that GMO’s don’t enter your diet, eat organic.

Eating organic is safer for you and better for the environment. Conventional large-scale farms use chemical fertilizers and pesticides to reap their high yields. Eventually, microorganisms that live in the soil and aid decomposition are destroyed by strong salts within the fertilizers. Without these microorganisms, nature’s cycle of regeneration is rudely disrupted. U.S. farms lose an average of 1.7 billion tons of soil every year. And twenty thousand farm workers die each year from exposure to chemicals, according to “The Newman’s Guide.”

Some argue that buying organic food is too costly, but if you would spend more money to have a bigger, better TV, why not spend more money to eat more nutritious food? Buying food is an investment in your personal longevity. Buying food should be weighed as one of the most important purchases you could make. In order to be fair to your body and your environment, you can purchase organic foods on DeKalb by buying fresh food from DeKalb’s farmers market, every Thursday at Palmer Court from 1-6 P.M., and by purchasing organic products from DeKalb’s Chicken Soup Coop.