Every Thursday Metro Mama writes about issues facing parents in our crazy slice of heaven.

Organic: To be or not to be? One pressing issue on the minds of moms is whether or not to go organic. This is both for food choices and cleaning products, which can be better for our health and the environment, but not better for our wallet.

With our food choices, we mainly shop at Safeway, which is close and convenient to home, but sometimes do go to Whole Foods and Trader Joes. The product I insist on buying organic is milk, skim milk to be exact. I choose this due to the fact that in my mom’s group, another mother told the story that doctors are seeing more cases of girls developing breasts at an earlier age. She said it was due to all the hormones they give cows to produce milk. Since I have a daughter, this news scared me particularly, even if this bit of information is a rumor or an urban legend. I didn’t want to take any chances, so organic milk for us almost 100% of the time.

Another thing we buy organic is fruit, but only occasionally. Sometimes after eating some non-organic bananas that taste funny, I’ll switch back to organic for awhile. Now cleaning products on the other hand are a whole different story. I’m a clean freak, germ-a-phobic mom, and have at least three generations of other clean freaks in my family. We hate dirt, dust and grime and love the power of bleach.

Now I’ve read about how bad bleach is for the environment but nothing else has its ability to remove mold and mildew, and an assortment of other nasty things. I have tried a bottle or two of those organic cleaners with orange extract stuff in them, but I’d rather have that good ole’ bottle of Lysol killing all the germs around my house.

Don’t read Parents magazine, their reader stories will scare the beejesus out of you. One story included a tale about a toddler who washed her face with antibacterial soap, didn’t rinse it off all the way, and received some sort of chemical burn. Of course we don’t really need antibacterial soap, as it’s the friction of washing your hands that actually kills the germs, so regular soap will work fine. Other organic products I’ve tried include shampoos, conditioners and deodorant, but let me tell you, that organic deodorant does not work….I won’t describe further.

Then last week on the local news channel, what do I hear to my surprise? Young boys who are using products with lavender and tee tree oil are now developing breasts!

It seems like no matter what products we choose, we can’t win. I’ll just stick to what I know and hope we don’t get cancer or die of a nasty strain of bacteria.