From: "ANNIE GAZDAG" <GAZDAG@GANDALF.PHYSED.WISC.EDU>

Subject: Re: Natural vs. Man-made pesticides

Organization: U.W. Dept. of Kinesiology

Threat to human health posed by minute residues of man-made chemicals is small

>>When I read this response, I chuckled to myself. What about the

>>herbicides and pesticides on the vegetables? Vegetables even

>>produce substances to ward of bugs and disease that are sometimes

>>more toxic than what is applied to them by a farmer.

>

>>Kevin Kelly, LRD

>

>

>how about eating organically grown vegtables then?

>i'd like to know what substances plants produce that are more toxic

>than what a farmer uses on his fields. i'll take my chances with the

>plants any day.

>richard

Why? Just like vitamins: it doesn't matter if a plant made a given

compound, or a chemist. If a compound affects how a fungus

synthesizes its cell wall by inhibiting an enzyme only the

threatening plant fungus produces, how is this going to affect

you?

Please refer to some of the latest opinions of Dr Bruce Aimes, the

legendary biochemist at UC Berkeley who came up with the Aimes test

which was so widely used in the 70's to test compounds for their

mutagenic capacity. Results from these experiments were extrapolated

into conclusions that tons of additives in our food supply were

cancer-causing. He later tested extracts from mushrooms and celery

and tons of other plants. Lo and behold, it was either mushrooms or

celery, but one of these was far more mutagenic than any food

additive he had tested. The point being, and Dr Aimes has expressed

these ideas in several popular press articles (I can't remember

exactly where I've read them), that we eat loads of compounds every

day in the plants we eat that have the capacity to kill insects and

other competing organisms. Yet, we are not affected. The threat to

human health posed by minute residues of man-made chemicals is so

small, and Dr Aimes predicts, can be totally counteracted by eating

fresh fruits and veggies because of the loads of antioxidants and

phytochemicals ineherent in these foods.

...just a thought to broaden one's perspective on the issue at hand.

Annie

Biodynamics Lab

UW-Madison