Organic; to buy or not to buy?

I'm a big advocate of buying organic food whenever possible or available for a variety of reasons. It is often slightly more expensive, but to me it's worth it so that my family and I can consume produce free of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Pesticides can have many negative influences on health, and according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 90 percent of fungicides, 60 percent of herbicides and 30 percent of insecticides are known to cause cancer.

Lab studies also show that they can cause many other serious health problems, such as:

- Infertility

- Birth defects, miscarriages, and stillbirths

- Learning disorders

- Aggressive behavior

- Nerve damage

- Cancer of the breast, prostate, and lymphatic system

Doctor Mercola said:

"Organic food can be more costly than its conventionally grown alternative, but your payoff of good health should more than make up for it - and reduce your overall healthy care costs in the future. It sure makes a load of sense to me to invest a bit more now so you can avoid paying much larger medical bills in the future, as well as avoid the physical and mental disability and dysfunction that inevitably follows from eating heavily contaminated foods for a lifetime."

I compiled a list of the most contaminated produce that you should try your very best to buy organic if possible, and those items that are least likely to be contaminated.