Everyone reckons their mom is one of a kind. Mine always sends me home with a bag of spinach from her vegetable garden. This time I found a huge grasshopper in the bag when I took it out of my fridge a couple of days later.

I was slightly annoyed about feeling sorry for a displaced grasshopper that survived two days in a fridge. I gave it a spinach leaf and went about my business. It went on like this for a couple of days. I left the kitchen window open wishing it would find a new home but it kept coming back in as soon as there was action in my kitchen, knowing there would be a leaf.

When it was finished I bought more spinach at the supermarket and tried to decide on a good name for my new pet. Same as every night, I rinsed a big leaf and put it out. Only to find a shrivelled up and very dead grasshopper in between my pasta jars the next morning.

While the pesticides on the supermarket spinach didn?t make me drop dead, I was sure it couldn?t be good for me. Perhaps it was time for me to look at organic food.

A fantasy for hippies and romantics?

It all sounds very beautiful - rainbows, butterflies and little lambs playing happily in green fields? but what is it really?

In a nutshell, organic farming respects the environment and turns back to farming by the cycles of nature instead of the artificial modern ways. Animals live a free-range lifestyle and chemicals are kept off the land, promoting water quality and wildlife. Pollution is minimised and soil is replenished with natural nutrients and microorganisms that nurture existing eco-systems.

It?s about farming in harmony with nature. No pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, fumigants, or genetic modification. Instead flowers and bushes are planted to attract the kind of insects that will ward off pests, for example Khakibos is used to keep the pests away from strawberry plantations.

And to make sure organic means the same to everyone, strict guidelines set out by international standards are followed.

Lovely. The only con is that, since organic farmers are subject to the predictability of nature, there is a lot of risk involved.

But does great risk mean that organic farming is a great deed?

Thing is, we can?t really be all that sure about what we put into our bodies. The reason behind all the chemicals and modifications are financial gain. Because a perfectly ripe green banana won?t sell as well as a yellow one.

And I can?t help wondering just how far human beings will actually go for money.

?Have you smelled food lately? These days food don?t smell of anything,? says Steven Saunders, British Master Chef and ambassador for Organic food.

?When you buy un-organic lemons its perfectly shaped, it?s perfectly yellow and its? perfectly useless,? he adds.

I eat to nourish my body but don?t know that the perfect food I choose lost it?s nourishing power in order to look that perfect. Organic does taste a whole world better. Once I tried an organic carrot, the average supermarket varieties were pretty much tasteless in comparison.

But it?s not just the taste. Modern farming methods can be downright immoral, says Steven.

?They feed cows antibiotics to produce milk four times a day. Milk contains lots of antibiotics and steroids.? So while I?m trying to avoid antibiotics, I?m being slipped a dosage via my coffee every day. In South Africa, only Woolworths dairy labels guarantee that their products are free of hormones. Ah, the importance of reading food labels.

What?s more, fruit such as lemons are waxed with insect poison. ?In England they?ve put a warning on the wax: ?Please don?t put the lemon zest into your food,? ?Please peel your apples before you eat them?, Saunders says, adding: ?have you ever heard anything more ridiculous??

> If I am what I eat, what is the risk?