Challenge: "Natural vs. Organic"

For my challenge meal this week I decided to make a salad with hard boiled eggs, carrots, grape tomatoes, and homemade salad dressing.  For some added protein, I choose to add a turkey burger to this meal, which could be eaten on the side or on top of the salad.  I also choose a glass of orange juice for a serving of fruit.  When I was at the store it was hard for me to actually see much of a difference between "organic" and the non organic options, other then price.

When I was choosing which type of greens to buy, the "organic baby spinach" stood out to me more and it looked to me like it would be a healthier option, however it was $3.99 and the normal spring mix was only $3.09.  Nothing on the "organic" label told me anything about how it was grown or what standards it had to pass to be considered organic, but it looked better to me then the spring mix so I choose that one.  

When buying tomatoes and baby carrots for the salad, the organic options were placed right next to the non-organic, but each product looked more or less the same other then the label.  The organic tomatoes were $3.49 and the normal ones were $2.99, for the same amount, but what is the real difference between the two?  Once I got to this point, I seriously started to question what the difference was between the two, but it was hard to tell since there were no ingredients on the packages of produce.  

So at this point I decided that I needed to look at something with more ingredients listed, and even though this was not included in my well rounded meal, I thought it was interesting because the Tostitos were listed as "simply natural", however when I got them home to compare the ingredients with the Crispy Round Tostitos I had, the ingredients were exactly the same.  Then when I compared the "organic" orange juice, which was almost $2 more then the non-organic orange juice, they also had the same ingredients! I know that organic does not necessarily mean it has different ingredients but it just seems a little confusing when I don't really know what I am paying extra for.

The last thing I purchased was the Jenny O "All Natural" turkey burgers, while I do believe that these turkey burgers were probably more healthy for me then a typically beef burger would have been, I was once again unable to see where the "All Natural" aspect played apart in the product. The only information I could get from the labeling was, Our products are labeled in compliance with government regulations".  I guess I will have to do some more research on what these government regulations are to find out if I really think it is worth more money to buy these "all natural" and "organic" products.