[taotau]

For me the answer to that question, as with most things in life, is a do a bit of both. Don't just buy the same food from the same place all the time.

Most people choose, conciously or not, to trust in organisations like the FDA to work in their interests, and I don't think that trust is wholly misplaced - sure, guidelines might be stretched sometimes in the interests of getting a pesticide product to market, but it's rare that you hear of someone taking a bite of an apple and dropping dead. The issues that arise from toxicity in food come with small doses of the stuff building up over time. You can aleviate this by varying the source and the type of food you consume. The body is pretty resilient and has mechanisms for dealing with managable levels of toxicity. Potatoes, tomatoes and peppers are all from the nightshade family, one of the nastiest natural poisons, and yet we consume tonnes of these with no ill effect.

Try to buy seasonal produce - organic or not, things grown and sold locally will have way less chemical treatments applied to them.

Take the kids to your local farmers market once a month - talk to the stall holders and learn whats fresh and where it comes from. You get a fun family outing and a bit of variety in your food. A little bit of the good stuff is bound to help your body process the chemicals from the bad stuff you buy the rest of the time. It doesnt have to be all or nothing.