Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Okay, so since I spent a lot of time in the previous post basically saying that man-made doesn't necessarily equal "bad" and natural doesn't necessarily equal "good" and vice versa, I can give an example or two of when natural wins out hands down, and probably gives a very powerful influence on our perceptions that shift natural to equate more with good than man-made.
FLAVORS, SCENTS, REMEDIES, and NUTRIENTS;
like found in
SPICES, TEAS, WINES, and FOOD.
Natural versus synthetic origin is extremely important in things like vanilla vs. vanillin (the synthetic version - but note that they're not called the same thing, because they are not at all, though in our ice cream this may be lost in the mix). This is because what we call natural vanilla is in fact many different compounds (hundreds) in addition to the main compound, vanillin, which is exactly the same as the synthetic vanillin. This is where the wonderful complexity of nature comes in. And, this is a case where we can draw a distinction between natural vs. man-made, because of what the compounds are. It is at this stage practically impossible to identify and duplicate the complexity of mixtures in flavors like vanilla extract and wine.
Most flavors are like this - extremely complex mixtures of hundreds of molecules that are pretty much impossible to replicate artificially.
Now, it is very natural to extend this idea that the complexity in flavors and scents resulting from the hundreds of different compounds present in plants holds secrets. So, maybe nutrients and natural remedies based on plants also contain secrets. We may not even be able to easily recognize all of the compounds in a plant, fruit or vegetable, let alone replicate the mixture, and identify what is doing what. But, this is our human lack of knowledge on what does what and what is in what, not a basic difference between what the sources are.
So, eating vitamin and nutrient-rich food or eating a lot of vitamins? Of course it would seem that in most cases it is better to eat food, because of the hundreds of compounds that come along with anything we eat. The compounds (or in other words, chemicals or molecules) that we are eating are exactly the same in both cases, it is just in the case of food, we are ingesting many hundreds more different types - In a nut you get the omega acids, protein, and any number of different antioxidants along with the Vitamin E, with a vitamin you only get the Vitamin E (which is exactly identical to the molecule in the nut).
Though before we sign off on the idea that plants are there to wonderfully nurture us (and nothing else) by the way, bitter almonds have caused deaths, because in addition to the nutrient compounds, they are a rich source of hydrogen cyanide.
FLAVORS, SCENTS, REMEDIES, and NUTRIENTS;
like found in
SPICES, TEAS, WINES, and FOOD.
Natural versus synthetic origin is extremely important in things like vanilla vs. vanillin (the synthetic version - but note that they're not called the same thing, because they are not at all, though in our ice cream this may be lost in the mix). This is because what we call natural vanilla is in fact many different compounds (hundreds) in addition to the main compound, vanillin, which is exactly the same as the synthetic vanillin. This is where the wonderful complexity of nature comes in. And, this is a case where we can draw a distinction between natural vs. man-made, because of what the compounds are. It is at this stage practically impossible to identify and duplicate the complexity of mixtures in flavors like vanilla extract and wine.
Most flavors are like this - extremely complex mixtures of hundreds of molecules that are pretty much impossible to replicate artificially.
Now, it is very natural to extend this idea that the complexity in flavors and scents resulting from the hundreds of different compounds present in plants holds secrets. So, maybe nutrients and natural remedies based on plants also contain secrets. We may not even be able to easily recognize all of the compounds in a plant, fruit or vegetable, let alone replicate the mixture, and identify what is doing what. But, this is our human lack of knowledge on what does what and what is in what, not a basic difference between what the sources are.
So, eating vitamin and nutrient-rich food or eating a lot of vitamins? Of course it would seem that in most cases it is better to eat food, because of the hundreds of compounds that come along with anything we eat. The compounds (or in other words, chemicals or molecules) that we are eating are exactly the same in both cases, it is just in the case of food, we are ingesting many hundreds more different types - In a nut you get the omega acids, protein, and any number of different antioxidants along with the Vitamin E, with a vitamin you only get the Vitamin E (which is exactly identical to the molecule in the nut).
Though before we sign off on the idea that plants are there to wonderfully nurture us (and nothing else) by the way, bitter almonds have caused deaths, because in addition to the nutrient compounds, they are a rich source of hydrogen cyanide.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Natural vs. Organic vs. ....
Consider this:
Organic in agriculture and marketing seems to mean "no man-made chemicals" for instance, pesticides, fertilizers, etc. So, organic is pretty close to meaning "natural" in this context, so, being a fan of first-order logic (if this then that, etc.) we can break this down perhaps something like this:
IF
pesticides and/or fertilizers on my food = not good
AND
pesticides and/or fertilizers = man-made
THEN
man-made = not good.
AND IF
natural = opposite of man-made
THEN
natural = good.
Now consider:
in chemistry, organic means carbon containing. Organic chemistry refers to the chemistry of hydrocarbons - on which most life is heavily based. In organic chemistry, chemists (at small scale and large scale) make things like vitamins, hormones, amino-acids, drug compounds, ... many (maybe most) of which occur in nature.
One good example of this is aspirin. Salicylic acid occurs naturally in willow bark, and has known to have analgesic properties since the 18th century. Chemists then isolated it in the 19th century and derived a closely related form (to be less irritating), called acetylsalicylic acid, or trademarked by Bayer as aspirin. Aspirin is one of the most commonly used drugs in the world, with 20,000 tons consumed yearly.
Now, take any of the supplements you care to as an example, such as a vitamin, hormone, or other extract, and you have basically the same story - to extract and isolate these from natural sources would be an ecological disaster more or less similar to destroying the world's willow trees or using a large amount of land to plant and grow willow trees to make aspirin. The willow tree (or tomato that contains lycopene, or almond that contains Vitamin E) is in fact an extremely inefficient producer of salicylic acid, since it is making another hundred or more compounds, converting light to energy, etc. Making salicylic acid is only one small thing it does - and this is why it makes much more sense to protect the environment to meet the world's analgesic needs by intensifying the generation in a chemical process.
This is why practically all of the supplements on the shelves are man-made, though many, maybe most, are found and used in nature. And, one can be thankful that they are man-made, since that protects many species from over-use. Remember also that leaves, seeds, skins of fruits, berrys and plants contain small amounts of any single compound, so a very large amount of the leaf or berry has to be processed to recover the compound. For example, almonds contain about 10 milligrams per 100 gram of Vitamin E. So, at the recommended intake of 15 mg/day, 150 grams of almonds would need to be processed, or about 1/8th of a pound, and then the leftovers presumably discarded, or used as animal feed or the like. This is a very inefficient way to secure Vitamin E. It takes a lot of land to grow the almonds, and a lot of energy and expense to extract and isolate the Vitamin E.
Now, back to the beginning, and the logic of it all. The logical statements above are false, and are an error in logic known as the "hasty generalization" or an "insufficient sample" fallacy. Taking too small of a sampling of cases and then generalizing to a much broader case on too little evidence in consideration. So, while obviously it is bad to eat pesticides, it is not true that most man-made substances (or chemicals) are pesticides or fertilizers, or even similar to them in chemical nature. In fact, of all the new compounds that occupy chemists time, most are not similar in properties to noxious compounds, since the largest single generator of new chemical compounds in the world is the pharmaceutical industry, and they quickly reject toxic compounds and don't go further with them.
A similar hasty generalization goes like this:
IF
humans need and eat food to survive (and don't die as a direct result from eating it)
AND
food is almost entirely of natural origin
THEN
natural products are safe.
The hasty generaliztion here is assuming that we can eat everything and not die (or get sick) as a result.
Taking larger sample sizes, we can consider alternative measures of whether something is safe or not than immediate effects on ingestion - Bruce Ames's tests on the carcinogenicity of natural and man-made substances. He is the inventor of the Ames test, the first screening for mutagenicity (and resultingly carcinogenicity), which revolutionized toxicology in the '70's. He showed that in fact on average many more natural substances tested positive in an Ames test than man-made chemicals, and two of the biggest culprits were mushrooms and broccoli. By this toxicological standard, the compounds in mushrooms and broccoli mutate the DNA of bacteria, and would be immediately rejected as a drug candidate.
Likewise, if one were to consider on a chemical by chemical basis how many plants and substances contained in plants were edible in a rain forest, it is easy to be convinced that many more plants were inedible than edible, and so the hasty generalization of assuming that most natural substances are edible leads to inaccurate conclusions.
Halley's blog is almost always more up to date and interesting than mine.
Organic in agriculture and marketing seems to mean "no man-made chemicals" for instance, pesticides, fertilizers, etc. So, organic is pretty close to meaning "natural" in this context, so, being a fan of first-order logic (if this then that, etc.) we can break this down perhaps something like this:
IF
pesticides and/or fertilizers on my food = not good
AND
pesticides and/or fertilizers = man-made
THEN
man-made = not good.
AND IF
natural = opposite of man-made
THEN
natural = good.
Now consider:
in chemistry, organic means carbon containing. Organic chemistry refers to the chemistry of hydrocarbons - on which most life is heavily based. In organic chemistry, chemists (at small scale and large scale) make things like vitamins, hormones, amino-acids, drug compounds, ... many (maybe most) of which occur in nature.
One good example of this is aspirin. Salicylic acid occurs naturally in willow bark, and has known to have analgesic properties since the 18th century. Chemists then isolated it in the 19th century and derived a closely related form (to be less irritating), called acetylsalicylic acid, or trademarked by Bayer as aspirin. Aspirin is one of the most commonly used drugs in the world, with 20,000 tons consumed yearly.
Now, take any of the supplements you care to as an example, such as a vitamin, hormone, or other extract, and you have basically the same story - to extract and isolate these from natural sources would be an ecological disaster more or less similar to destroying the world's willow trees or using a large amount of land to plant and grow willow trees to make aspirin. The willow tree (or tomato that contains lycopene, or almond that contains Vitamin E) is in fact an extremely inefficient producer of salicylic acid, since it is making another hundred or more compounds, converting light to energy, etc. Making salicylic acid is only one small thing it does - and this is why it makes much more sense to protect the environment to meet the world's analgesic needs by intensifying the generation in a chemical process.
This is why practically all of the supplements on the shelves are man-made, though many, maybe most, are found and used in nature. And, one can be thankful that they are man-made, since that protects many species from over-use. Remember also that leaves, seeds, skins of fruits, berrys and plants contain small amounts of any single compound, so a very large amount of the leaf or berry has to be processed to recover the compound. For example, almonds contain about 10 milligrams per 100 gram of Vitamin E. So, at the recommended intake of 15 mg/day, 150 grams of almonds would need to be processed, or about 1/8th of a pound, and then the leftovers presumably discarded, or used as animal feed or the like. This is a very inefficient way to secure Vitamin E. It takes a lot of land to grow the almonds, and a lot of energy and expense to extract and isolate the Vitamin E.
Now, back to the beginning, and the logic of it all. The logical statements above are false, and are an error in logic known as the "hasty generalization" or an "insufficient sample" fallacy. Taking too small of a sampling of cases and then generalizing to a much broader case on too little evidence in consideration. So, while obviously it is bad to eat pesticides, it is not true that most man-made substances (or chemicals) are pesticides or fertilizers, or even similar to them in chemical nature. In fact, of all the new compounds that occupy chemists time, most are not similar in properties to noxious compounds, since the largest single generator of new chemical compounds in the world is the pharmaceutical industry, and they quickly reject toxic compounds and don't go further with them.
A similar hasty generalization goes like this:
IF
humans need and eat food to survive (and don't die as a direct result from eating it)
AND
food is almost entirely of natural origin
THEN
natural products are safe.
The hasty generaliztion here is assuming that we can eat everything and not die (or get sick) as a result.
Taking larger sample sizes, we can consider alternative measures of whether something is safe or not than immediate effects on ingestion - Bruce Ames's tests on the carcinogenicity of natural and man-made substances. He is the inventor of the Ames test, the first screening for mutagenicity (and resultingly carcinogenicity), which revolutionized toxicology in the '70's. He showed that in fact on average many more natural substances tested positive in an Ames test than man-made chemicals, and two of the biggest culprits were mushrooms and broccoli. By this toxicological standard, the compounds in mushrooms and broccoli mutate the DNA of bacteria, and would be immediately rejected as a drug candidate.
Likewise, if one were to consider on a chemical by chemical basis how many plants and substances contained in plants were edible in a rain forest, it is easy to be convinced that many more plants were inedible than edible, and so the hasty generalization of assuming that most natural substances are edible leads to inaccurate conclusions.
Halley's blog is almost always more up to date and interesting than mine.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Organic Lifestyle Magazine
Just got off the phone with Jeanne from Organic Lifestyle magazine. They were new to me - but really she was very genuine and nice.
http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com
It's digital, and in a form which I have been thinking would work nicely, which is that it's like leafing through a magazine, and so you can do full-page ads, etc. I was thinking this would be good since the internet world today is dominated by the banner and small text ad. We always do better when we can say more -
As for the philosophy of the magazine, Jeanne was super nice and we hit it off and talked for over an hour - mostly no business, just about skin care and the organic trend, etc.
We are all dealing with the same issues - how do non-corporate (in other words, the people who provide goods and services without the help of wall street) people communicate with their communities and then each other to introduce new people to other people and things that they may like or help them? For me: it's not twitter.
http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com
It's digital, and in a form which I have been thinking would work nicely, which is that it's like leafing through a magazine, and so you can do full-page ads, etc. I was thinking this would be good since the internet world today is dominated by the banner and small text ad. We always do better when we can say more -
As for the philosophy of the magazine, Jeanne was super nice and we hit it off and talked for over an hour - mostly no business, just about skin care and the organic trend, etc.
We are all dealing with the same issues - how do non-corporate (in other words, the people who provide goods and services without the help of wall street) people communicate with their communities and then each other to introduce new people to other people and things that they may like or help them? For me: it's not twitter.
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