Chemicals and Organic Food

I wanted to comment about a funny article Raj sent me. I was asking Brian the other day what a 'chemical' is actually defined as. He said it was everything and couldn't think of the right definition. I looked it up and here were two versions.

Merriam Webster: a substance obtained by a chemical process or producing a chemical effect (a little vague, so I looked up a more specific definition)

Chemistry.about.com: Short answer: Everything is a chemical. Longer answer: Chemistry is the study of matter and its interactions with other matter. Anything made of matter is therefore a chemical. Any liquid, solid, gas. Any pure substance; any mixture. Water is a chemical.

A few days later, with excellent timing, Raj sent me this funny article:
http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2008/ChemicalFree.asp

I just thought this was interesting since most of us are scared of 'chemicals' without even really thinking about what that means. I get caught up in the whole 'organic' world because I want to eat healthier. But I have to stop and think sometimes because the labels are sometimes very helpful, while a lot of times they are just saying things to scare me into buying their more expensive products (which I do sometimes without thinking). How about when I bought organic, hormone-free chicken one time only to find out that ALL chickens are hormone-free because the FDA doesn't allow chickens or pigs to be injected with hormones, only cows??