Go organic and go local

Over the last few days I have been involved in many discussions regarding GMO vs non-GMO, organic vs non-organic, local vs imported.  The underlying grievance was the cost issue.  So I thought I will lay down my take on it.
GMO vs non-GMO
GMO food inherently contains carcinogens at the cell level so if is just about impossible to get rid of it.  The purpose of GMO was to alter the natural state of the produce at a cellular level so that it can contain pesticides to enable the plant to produce more and or standardised product.  This is great for commercialising a produce as you can have high yield at a lower cost. The major GMO produce are corn and soy and more will probably be added in the future.  These two items appear in many forms,  For corn, some of the items are  fresh corn, frozen corn kernels, corn oil, corn syrup, corn flour, and breakfast cereal.   Another item often forgotten is animal feed as many use corn which are GMO so the toxins gets transferred from the feed to the animal and to us such as in chicken, beef and fish and shellfish and also in milk.  For soy, some of the items are soya bean oil, soya sauce, soy milk and soy flour. The pesticides are carcinogens and though Big Businesses claim that it is safe, there are many non-industry sponsored studies that show otherwise including the proliferation of a new disease called Autoimmune.   Good for business but bad for people.

Organic vs non-organic
Organic produce is produced without using any chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers.  The soil has also got to be toxic chemical contaminant free.  Hydrophonic method is not necessarily organic.  For non-organic, anything goes.  Organic farming is also more labor-intensive.  For my definition I also include avoidance of plant hormones.

Local vs Imported
For some reason, many are ignorant and automatically assume that if something is imported then it is good.  Not necessarily so.  Imported costs more as there is transportation costs, handling costs and other related costs.  So the higher price doesn't mean that it is of better quality.  It goes back to knowing your source.

What it boils down to is: "Do you want to pay now or pay later?".  So, if you think that choosing organic, non-GMO and local is more expensive or not of high quality, do be sure to add up the costs properly.  The other hidden costs are medical bills, transport costs (for treatment and related services required), pharmaceutical bills (bear in mind that sometimes you will be prescribed a few drugs as the first is for your condition and the others to treat the effects of the first drug), future higher food costs (as then you can only eat foods that meet the criteria for your condition), loss of work days, lower quality of life and other costs.