Everything is natural

[Quixote1818]

I get the impression there are a lot of people on DU who buy into the idea that for something to be healthy it has to be natural and not processed. Everything in the universe is made of atoms and we as humans have evolved out of the earth and become so advanced that we can speed up evolution and produce all kinds of different chemicals by putting things together in all kinds of ways, very quickly and very creatively. When scientists produce something that is not found in "nature" perhaps it will be found in "nature" in another million years as plants continue to evolve with evolution? Perhaps some kind of plant will evolve with chlorine atoms connected to hydrogen and oxygen in just the right way and you will have some kind of apricot that tastes like chocolate cake that cures hemorrhoids! Maybe a group of scientists can put these atoms together in just a few years and come up with the same thing?

Humans are a part of nature and are much like very advanced ants creating amazing ant piles that include gourmet food, TV's, rocket ships, cars, computers, music, poetry, drugs etc. etc. Humans just have much more advanced ability's to mold nature and molecules and extract the beauty hidden in nature, like a puzzle.

There is a lot of brainwashing and misinformation by people who sell "health foods" and want you to buy their product or sell you a book they wrote that says something is bad because... OH NO it's PROCESSED :wow: and one scientist said so even thought their work has never been peer reviewed. Sean Hannity has two scientists who say Global Warming is BS and we have infomercials telling us that John Wayne had 40 lbs of fecal matter in his intestines http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/fecalcolon.asp when he died and if you just buy this "natural" product you will be all better. And yes, the FDA and all the other world health organizations are really all bought off and they just want to keep my awesome "natural" snake oil off the market!

Do we trust the FDA? Of course you should not just take their word without doing some investigating, but when you get all kinds of world organizations coming to the same conclusion as the FDA, it's probably a safe bet that what they are saying is OK. If not then use your best discretion and do more investigating, but don't just believe the first one or two websites you come across.

There are "natural" plants that will kill you in two minutes and there are "processed" foods that are great for you! Yes, even spinach, beans and carrots contain carcinogens that will kill you if you eat them five times a day for 70 years. Yes even vitamin A will kill you if you take too much, but in moderation they are great for you! The bottom line is checking out the peer reviewed science on any kind of food or drug. Check out as many websites as possible and get as many opinions as possible before making a decision on the safety of a product.

Can we now continue to create our wonderful complex "natural" ant pile and base our decisions on Science and NOT just because something is supposedly more "natural" and "organic" than the next thing? :shrug:

[Windy]

1. BRAVO!!!!!!

Thank you!!! I personally don't want to go back to the dark ages of rampant disease and a life span of 25-30 years!! I'm all for science and modern medicine!!!

[pinto]

2. Chocolate cake cures all ills.

I read it on the internets.

:evilgrin:

Thanks for the post.

[Kutjara]

3. Learning as much as possible is good advice.

Out of the approximately 100,000 synthetic chemicals currently in use, only around 15,000 have ever been tasted for safety. Only a handful of these have been tested for long term toxic effects in humans.

Much of the move toward so-called healthy foods is probably a reaction to the simple fact that we don't know much about the effects of what we put into our bodies. Humans have evolved alongside naturally occuring chemicals for hundreds of thousands of years, so the thinking goes that there is less liklihood of unforseen side effects from things we've eaten for thousands of generations than from something cooked up in a lab last year.

Add to this the fact that many mainstream foods are laced with pesticides, growth hormones and preservatives, and it's not hard to see why people would prefer a more "natural" alternative.

Much of the hype about particular types of healthy foods is just that: hype. But that doesn't mean we should be swallowing whatever big agriculture dishes up.

A little knowledge goes a long way.

[nebenaube]

4. yeah but you can keep your GM foods...

Terminator technology is a threat to the food supply.

[noamnety]

5. Not sure what you have against natural foods

But you seem upset that some people prefer them over mcdonalds.

The best thing for the environment is less processing, less shipping, less chemicals, less destructive agricultural methods, less meat. And NO GM FOODS.

Comparing processed foods to eating a lethal amount of spinach makes me question what point you are trying to make. Are you trying to argue that bleached flour with food coloring and added corn syrup is as good for us as carrots - because some plants are poisonous?

The logic here seems to be weak at best, nonexistent at worst.

[Quixote1818]

6. Who said I have anything against "natural" foods? ????

You missed the whole point of my post.

Did I not just say that Spinach and Beans are great for you???? The point I was making about the "lethal spinach" is that Aspartame has tiny doses of carcinogens but so does spinach, yet you get people writing up all kids of stuff on their websites saying Aspartame will kill you when spinach has the same amount of carcinogens as Aspartame. Why don't we have websites saying spinach will kill you? Why, ONLY because spinach is "natural" and Aspartame is man made. Thats bull shit in my opinion. It because of an illogical double standard and close-minded mindset that has been drilled into people. Spinach is great for you, it's probably about the healthiest thing you can eat! Aspartame may not be great for you but it's no more lethal than spinach.


I personally think McDonald's is about the worst thing for you so please don't put words in my mouth.

I am just urging people to make decisions on science and not on the illusion that all "natural" foods are great for you and ALL processed foods are bad for you. I would agree that most "natural" foods tend to be better for you than processed foods, but based on science many processed foods are certainly safe. There are many people who hear the word "processed" and freak out!!!! :wow: OMFG!!!! It's PROCESSED!!! IT'S GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!

Maybe it will kill you and maybe it wont but take the time to find out the facts and not just quote something that some fringe scientist, or health food guru claims is gospel.

[noamnety]

7. the difference between spinach and aspartame

Is that spinach contains fiber, calcium, iron, folate and vitamin A and C.
Aspartame doesn't contain anything beneficial - it ONLY contains harmful substances. Or, if you like, potentially harmful substances. Eating a chemical is not equivalent to eating a vegetable, even if they both consist of molecules found in nature.

Trying to equate the two in any way is disingenuous. It's like reading a great book that taught you a lot - and in the process getting a huge papercut - vs. taking an xacto knife and just slicing your finger.

I don't know where you are meeting people who freak out, or scream that "IT's GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!" It sounds like you have interesting friends.

If the chemicals, additives, preservatives, artificial coloring and artificial flavoring don't add any nutritional value to a food, then it's fair to say the only thing they add in the processing is health risk.

[Quixote1818]

9. You are splitting hairs just to keep arguing

I thought I had brought us together on my last post but for some reason you want argue and call me disingenuous. :eyes:

We agree that spinach is awesome!!!!! Can we please come together on that???? Please!

Almost everything you eat these days has some kind of preservative or additive or "harmful chemical" yet people are living much longer then they did 100 years ago when everything was "natural". Does that prove that these "chemicals" that you are so scared of are good for you? No, but it does prove that they are not that bad for you.

You don't have to agree with what I am saying but please refrain from saying I am "disingenuous" because that is just bull shit. I just wrote an essay urging people to investigate foods by using science and I think that is a rather responsible thing to do.

I would rather drink died coke than regular coke and get diabetes and heart disease (diabetes runs in my family). I would also urge others who drink too many sodas to do the same thing. I suppose you would prefer I get fat and sick because "natural" is ALWAYS better than man made. Oh, but you don't want me to drink something that has the same amount of carcinogens as spinach because of something you read on a website and is not based on peer reviewed science.

You see this is not a black and white issue. It has shades of gray.

[noamnety]

11. Wow. Even more disingenuous

"people are living much longer then they did 100 years ago when everything was "natural". Does that prove that these "chemicals" that you are so scared of are good for you? No, but it does prove that they are not that bad for you."

1. Scared implies an emotional reaction, rather than a logical one. As a debate tactic, it's lame - an attempt to dismiss the opposition by disparaging them, as opposed to using logic.

2. Speaking of logic, you're missing some. Almost everything you eat these days has some kind of preservative or additive or "harmful chemical" yet people are living much longer then they did 100 years ago when everything was "natural". Does that prove that these "chemicals" that you are so scared of are good for you? No, but it does prove that they are not that bad for you.

You haven't proved a relationship between the two statistics. There's a reason why people use controls and variables when doing scientific studies. They don't just say: People live longer - and yet we have more drunk drivers now than we did 100 years ago - this proves drunk driving is not that bad for you.

See the flaw in the logic? The assumption that processed foods either contribute to longevity, or have a neutral effect isn't based on anything. You've ignored the possibility that they are damaging, but not damaging enough to offset the beneficial effects of ... oh ... little things like sanitation and medical advances.

Also scoring high on the disingenuous scale is this attempt at logic: "I would rather drink died coke than regular coke and get diabetes and heart disease (diabetes runs in my family)." BOTH are processed foods with ZERO nutritional value. Why not talk about which is healthier - natural foods or regular coke?

[PhilipShore]

8. Everything is natural

:rofl:

[Quixote1818]

10. So I take it you don't believe in Evolution?

Here, check out this site: http://www.thegreatstory.org/what_is.html

The Great Story, "The Epic of Evolution", and the "Story of the Universe", refer to mythopoetic language used by a social movement (or meta-religious movement) that tell the history of the Universe in ways that are simultaneously scientific and sacred. It is an articulatation of the understandings of modern science – especially the evolutionary sciences ranging from stellar evolution to biological evolution and cultural evolution – as a sacred creation story, much like the traditional creation myths passed down through oral cultures and sacred texts. The most visible contemporary exponents of The Great Story are Michael Dowd, a former pastor, and Connie Barlow, a science author. The phrase "The Great Story" was coined in 1992 by cultural historian Thomas Berry.
Contents


* 1 Teachings
* 2 The Great Story Timeline
* 3 See also
* 4 External links

Teachings

Advocates of The Great Story see science not only as a source of physical truths that empower technology and the material affluence and complexity of modern life. They see its 14 billion year epic of evolution – with its eons of increasing complexity, aliveness, consciousness and intelligence – as a story filled with meaning and moral texture.

A foundational book of The Great Story is The Universe Story (1992) by Brian Swimme, a mathematical cosmologist, and Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest of the Passionist order and a cultural historian. But the movement sees itself as having roots in the work of anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley, biologist Edward O. Wilson, early conservation movement leader Aldo Leopold, evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley and, above all, the French Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (himself inspired by Henri Bergson). Recent contributions to an understanding of The Great Story include the writings of Robert Wright, John Stewart, Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams, and Eric Chaisson.

The Great Story Timeline

1. 13,700 mya: Great Radiance - beginning of the universe (13.7 billion years ago)
2. 12,000 mya: Galactic Phase - formation of stars
3. 4,600 mya: Hadean - formation of Earth, pre-life
4. 3,800 mya: Archaean - first life: bacteria
5. 2,000 mya: Proterozoic - amoebas
6. 540 mya: Paleozoic - complex life
* 540-500 mya: Cambrian
* 500-440 mya: Ordovician
* 440-410 mya: Silurian
* 410-360 mya: Devonian
* 360-290 mya: Carboniferous
* 290-245 mya: Permian
7. 245 mya: Mesozoic - dinosaurs
* 245-210 mya: Triassic
* 210-45 mya: Jurassic - flowering plants
* 145-65 mya: Cretaceous
8. 65 mya: Cenozoic - mammals & birds
9. 0.013 mya: Holocene - human-caused extinctions (13,000 years ago)
10. Today: Ecozoic - Vision for the future

[noamnety]

13. Wow.

Debating with you is like arguing with a fundie, if we were living through the looking glass, and the fundies were the scientists.

The previous poster was laughing at your assertion that EVERYTHING is natural. Apparently you never took a logic class, if you're deduction process went like this:

Not everything is natural = Nothing is natural.

[helderheid]

12. Everything is beauuuuutifuuuul in its own waaaaaay

Like a starry summer night or a snow covered winter's daaaaaay