Are organically grown foods the best food choices? The advantages claimed for such foods over conventionally grown and marketed food products are now being debated. Advocates of organic foods frequently proclaim that such products are safer and more nutritious than others. The growing interest of consumers in the safety and nutritional quality of the typical North American diet is a welcome development. However, much of this interest has been sparked by sweeping claims that the food supply is unsafe or inadequate in meeting nutritional needs. Although most of these claims are not supported by scientific evidence, the greater number of written material advancing such claims make it difficult for the general public to sep arate fact from fiction. As a result, claims that eating a diet consisting entirely of organically grown foods prevents or cures disease or provides other benefits to health have become widely publicized and form. the basis for folklore. Almost daily the public is surrounded by claims for 'no-aging' diets, new vitamins, and other wonder foods. There are numerous unsubstantiated reports that natural vitamins are superior to synthetic ones, that crops grown with organic fertilizers are nutritionally superior to chose with chemical fertilizers, that untreated grains are better than fumigated grains, and the like. One thing that most organically grown food products seem to have in common is that they cost more than conventionally grown foods. But in many cases consumers are misled if they believe organic foods can maintain health and provide better nutritional quality than conventionally grown foods. So there is real cause for concern ff consumers, particularly those with limited incomes, distrust the regular food supply and buy only expensive organic foods instead. The author implies that there is cause for concern if consumers with limit ed incomes buy organic foods instead of conventionally grown foods be cause ______ .