Over Thanksgiving, I found myself riding the Metro in Washington, D.C., and sat facing a cute advertisement featuring a little girl eating cereal. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the ad was actually pro-pesticide. As in, the pesticides we used on the farm to harvest this wheat that later became your Lucky Charms. Delicious.

I'll admit that I don't know a whole lot about pesticides. I want to say that they're poison and useless and everyone should eat naturally. And maybe I'd be right in saying that. But honestly, I'm not sure. I know that in the summer, I can grow tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, beans and pumpkins, and the only thing they get from me is the occasional splash with a hose. Everything is crisp and delicious. So I suspect it's possible to feed the world without a pesticide. But I know nothing about wheat farming, and I'm not going to pretend that I do. My point is that once I realized what that ad was for, I was disgusted.

Whether they're needed or not, I don't want to know about it. I eat a lot of organic food, but I also eat stuff that isn't organic, and even if my food is covered in pesticides, the last thing I want is to be reminded of it. And really, the last place anyone wants to think about pesticides is while enjoying breakfast cereal. If farmers and pesticide manufacturers want pesticides to get a better reputation, I don't think that associating themselves with our kids' breakfasts is the way to go.