If you’re at all familiar with my work, if you’ve read more than three blogs or listened to more than one radio show, you’ve read or heard me say something like this: “Make sure it’s organic, grass-fed, free-range or wild-caught.” I feel like a parrot sometimes! But good things are worth repeating, over and over and over if necessary.

But what I want to address here is the question, “Why?” It’s a fair question, because I hear it from patients all the time. They ask me because—and I totally acknowledge this—going au naturale is a bit of a burden. Quality food is more expensive, harder to find and all around less convenient. It takes research and work and going out of your way. It takes justifying a change in your food budget.

Of course, there are ways to minimize costs and make things more convenient, but still, it’s a shift in lifestyle for most people, and that’s not always easy.

But to properly answer the question, we should reframe it to “Why not eat organic?” Imagine a courtroom scenario where the burden of proof falls on the new paradigm—processed foods, industrially farmed, antibiotic-ridden, genetically modified foods should be the one to justify themselves. The organic food we advocate was there first! It’s what we as a species and the entire ecosystem throughout Earth’s history has created and subsisted on for a bazillion years!

But in the modern, chemical-saturated world, organic food must meet a higher standard than non-organic for it to earn the designation. In America, that standard is set by the USDA and they are rather strict, actually. And the technicalities can be confusing. But I found a very nice blog published by the USDA that outlines the basics in fairly straightforward language. Here’s the breakdown:

• For meat, the animals must be raised in accordance with their natural behavior. This means that if the animal would graze out in the wild, like a sheep or a cow, it must be allowed to graze to be designated organic.
• Animals cannot be given any hormones or antibiotics.
• Animals must be fed organic food or forage, meaning that the fields they graze in (for example) must be organic as well.
• Organic food of any kind cannot contain any artificial preservatives, colors or flavors.
• Produce has to be grown in soil where pesticides (or other prohibited substances) have not been used for at least three years.

There are some nuances to the regulations that you should be aware of. For example, there are variances in labels. This is particularly important for multi-ingredient foods. So, if you were to buy an “organic” frozen burrito, for example, it can be labeled “Made with Organic” if only 70 percent of the ingredients are organic, and the remaining 30 percent are not genetically modified (GMO). Other than that, there is a “100% organic label.” Also, in multi-ingredient foods, some non-organic ingredients are allowed when they are required to make the food itself. This includes pectin for fruit jam, enzymes in yogurt, baking soda in baked goods, etc.

The USDA system isn’t perfect. For example, there has been concern that they are not stringent enough when it comes to the surrounding areas where organic crops are grown. A farmer can grow crops in a pesticide-free field for three years, but his crop might still pick up pesticides from a shared water source with a neighboring farmer who uses them, or the wind can blow pesticides into the organic field. Nevertheless, the standards are higher for organic food and that alone is a reason to prefer it.

Still, we haven’t even begun to address what non-organic food is, can be and what it can do to you. And this could be the subject of dozens of articles and radio shows, but we’ll break it down in simple terms.

Exposure to pesticides has been linked to short-term effects like dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, rashes and irritation of the eyes. Long-term, pesticide exposure has been linked to leukemia, lymphoma and cancer of just about every internal organ. And it’s been linked to Parkinson’s disease, birth defects and infertility.

The use of antibiotics in livestock has been linked to a resistance to antibiotics in animals, humans and (here’s the really scary one) bacteria. There now exist, as a result of antibiotic resistance, bacteria that cannot be killed by any antibiotic that currently exists. They call these bacteria “superbugs.”

The effects of GMO foods are a source of much controversy—but one must wonder how political these controversies are. It’s not even a secret how much power food companies wield in American politics. In any case, GMO foods are thought to be a major contributor to the rise in food allergies in the developed world. The biggest concern with GMO foods is their unpredictability. Considering how new they are in the human diet, we really aren’t sure what they’ll do. But some studies involving rats and mice have shown conclusive links between GMO foods and tumor growth.

Obviously, you don’t want any of that. But let’s not be so negative. Let’s see what happens when you do eat non-GMO, organic, free-range, grass-fed, wild-caught food.

You enter your natural state! You become that physical essence of humanity without the risks and health issues that have arisen as a result of the modern world. You’re not going to develop diabetes. You’re not going to suffer from toxicity issues in your endocrine system, digestive system and brain. You’re not going to be dealing with a constant inflammation and an immune response responding to the onslaught of foreign bodies that make their way into your systems through toxic foods. You’ll be drastically less likely to develop things like Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, heart disease, stroke and so much more.

You know, they talk a lot about the cost of healthcare in society. It’s a big political issue—and rightfully so. The responses tend to be attempts to reform social institutions like health insurance or tax schemes. Add to that the fact that a huge portion of healthcare costs are in dealing with preventable diseases like obesity, Type II diabetes, heart disease and cancers. Add to that a good exercise regimen and regular chiropractic care, you’ll be easily in the most resilient and healthy class of human beings to ever walk the earth.

In the U.S. in 2014, $3 trillion was spent on healthcare. That boils down to about $9,500 per person in the country. That’s a lot of money. It’s a lot more money than you’re going to spend switching to organic.