Bob, no doubt there are poor practices on both sides of the fence, I'm sure my vets see it, too. I hope that a new generation of farmers, younger than myself, will take up the banner of land stewardship and good husbandry practices like Wendell Berry writes about. I just think it would be good for people to either grow their own so they know what goes into it, or create relationships with those people who do produce their food. Unfortunately I don't have enough arable land to feed my community, or I would. We dream of buying a real field, but in reality the field will probably be sold to developers to make another gated community of summer homes.
I saw a bag of onions at the store the other day, prominently touted as being grown in Texas, no doubt in the county south of me. However, it said they were bagged in Florida! There are people here out of work that would have jumped at the chance to bag onions. There's so much folly in our current food system, it hurts my brain.
Ridge, I worm the dogs monthly anyway, so the once a year eggs are on top of that, not replacing that. I agree with SeedO that organic is a way of life.
Through both sides of my family I am genetically predisposed to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity. I made the decision to adopt this lifestyle when I was 13 (which was a long time ago!). A few years ago a documentary came out called Forks Over Knives (changing your health through how you eat (fork) rather than surgery (knife)) that is worth seeing if you get a chance. I think it's on Netflix and Amazon now.
One thing I should point about about the cost of organics, is that most of the organic farms are smaller and do not receive the government subsidies that big ag gets. Just take a look at how many ag chemical lobbyists are now in governmental positions. And with these same companies gifting monies to universities who produce the studies, it's no wonder the outcomes can be skewed to their advantage. Although more organic companies are going big, their ag practices don't necessarily set well with small organic ag, like having a small patio for 250,000 chickens and being able to call it free-range.
I am more of a follower of E.F. Shumacher's Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (or animals, or the land, etc.) As in many systems, quality is not successfully scalable.
oh dear 
