After reading chapter 11, "Slow Food Nations," I don't think I'll ever feel guilty swiping my debit card with organic food on the bill ever again. For my past guilt was due in part to certain family members labeling organic food as simply a marketing ploy to deceive a hapless idealist and radical liberal as myself. To them, shopping at Whole Foods is an elitist and pretentious venture, and clearly mocking my status as an English major, they jeeringly claim that I won't be able to afford organic food in the future. This constant criticism, among other false information, almost persuaded me to think organic food was unnecessary and nothing special. Luckily, after reading chapter 11, I am now equipped with useful information about organic food and farming to combat the common myths. Here's the useful information I picked up (not exhaustive): "organic farming, by definition, enhances the soil's living and nonliving components. Modern conventional farming is an efficient reduction of that process that adds back just a few crucial nutrients of the many that are removed each year when biomass is harvested"; with the continued spraying of chemicals, a bugs genetic resistance will increase; "more than 500 species of insects and mites now resist our chemical controls, along with over 150 viruses and other plant pathogens; "twenty percent of approved-for-use pesticides are listed by the EPA as carcinogenic"; organic agriculture allows insect predator populations to retain a healthy presence in our fields; and fruits and vegetables grown without pesticides and herbicides contain 50 to 60 percent more antioxidants than their sprayed counterparts. Hopefully, with this information, the term "organic" won't meet the same fate as "existentialism."