I'd say the point is mostly that those big, scary sounding chemical names you see in products that "Organic" companies like to point to really aren't scary at all.
what are some of those specific "scary sounding chemical names" an "Organic" company points towards? I'm not familiar with organic companies intentionally trying to fool people that particular naturally occurring agents are harmful. The kinds of agents they do point to are typically synthetic compounds which are widely suspected of being harmful but are still in wide use such as bisphenol A used in plastic containers.
Many organic companies, particularly in the cosmetics and toiletry market, like advertising their products as "all natural" and "without scary chemicals". For example, products that like to villainize both Nitrates/Nitrites and MSG. Hell, pretty much any bacon, sausage or cured products advertised as "Nitrate-free" or as "No Nitrated added" are relying on the fact that you think Nitrates are bad while still adding nitrates. Instead of adding Sodium Nitrate to their products they remain "all natural" and "organic" by adding celery juice, which is high in nitrates.
Nitrates aren't harmful in themselves - it's the Nitrosamines that they can produce under certain conditions, which are very definitely carcinogenic.
Probably not so bad these days, since there have been steps taken to reduce the amount of nitrosamine in all sorts of foodstuffs. There's a good overview at http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w00/nitrosamine.html
Given most of the information there, it's possibly a good reason to avoid the hippie celery juice bacon (though I've never seen it in the stores), mainly because you don't know how much nitrate you're getting. But it's a little more complex than "Lol, hippies."
the potential harm associated with "nitrates" has been addressed by someone else, and with MSG specifically, some people simply have unpleasant reactions to it (though these results are difficult to reproduce clinically, they are listed at http://www.mayoclinic.org/monosodium-glutamate/expert-answer..., the desire to avoid the risk of these effects is quite rational) and there's additionally no reason a non-essential compound such as MSG needs to be used - using artificially-isolated compounds to modify one's neurologic reaction to food is a practice that a lot of us choose not to participate in, and we'd prefer the food is of enough quality to start with that such modification is not necessary in order for it to taste good. There is no "fear" that MSG is causing actual harm, only that it's a sign of an otherwise low-quality food product. Hence we appreciate when a product marks it as not included.
While interesting, I think these diagrams are dangerous. They send a message that if fresh fruits contain these "scary" chemicals, then we shouldn't worry about the chemicals we see in processed foods. The problem is that some processed foods really do contain chemicals we should be afraid of. Artificial colours or things like calcium disodium EDTA are good examples.
My part time project has been to try and provide some simple to understand descriptions of the "scary" chemicals at http://foodconstrued.com
This is fantastic! I don't eat meat, and out of laziness I often get my protein from Quorn, which is a brand of Mycoprotein. People often say "but it's synthetic! It's made in vats!". This is true. So what?
I was having this debate with someone and we had a look at the ingredients. My opponent pointed triumphantly at "rehydrated corn starch" (i.e. flour and water). "See, it's processed!", she said.
I wish we could get away from the idea that Stainless Steel Bad, Wood and Leather Good. I suspect a lot of people would be horrified to see the shiny metallic interior of that temple of Natural Goodness the Innocent Smoothie factory!
ps: "out of laziness" - not because there's anything wrong with Quorn as a source of nutrients; it's just a pretty boring way to cook and eat!
To be pedantic, Quorn is not synthetic. It's made by intensive farming of fungi, not by pure abiotic chemical synthesis. But I agree with all your points :)
It doesn't really have any flavour of its own (similarly to Tofu), but it's normally sold "chicken-style" or "beef-style", and has some sort of very mild flavouring added.
One form it comes in is frozen "mince". That would probably be the best way for a non-veggie to eat it. You can use it as a replacement for beef in pies/chili con carne/bolognese etc. The lack of fat probably makes it slightly less satisfying but I'd say it's worth it for the health benefits. The actual flavour doesn't suffer at all.
I've eaten it for about six years. The basic ingredient has no flavour, but is very good at taking on flavours in a dish. Mostly it's sold pre-flavoured in some way (like chicken-style, beef-style, etc.) and these tend to be pretty nice too. As a way to get started, chicken-style pieces are excellent for stir-frys.
I've been vegan about as long as I've been vegetarian. Since quorn has almost no vegan options (this has changed very recently), I haven't had a chance to try. But there are several other vegetarian products that are delicious and satisfying that I have enjoyed more than their "real" counterparts.
The author seems to be putting quite a bit of time into making these by hand. I wonder if it's possible to auto-generate these diagram/infographics for arbitrary food items and ingredient lists using nutritiondata.com and chemical databases.
Yes/No; you'd need to do extractions[1] and GC-MS[2] at the very least to get the possible compound list. Plant / animal tissue is fairly complex, and while we can guesstimate compounds and relative percentages there are some obvious issues with this if we want to use them as canon.
I'm an absolute layman when it comes to this subject, so forgive my verbosity and lack of proper terminology:
When I clicked on that link and searched for "banana" and then clicked on "banana, raw", I was hoping to see a list of the scary-looking names I saw on the blog post that started this thread. I only see things I recognize.
I think what would be cool/interesting (and I'm guessing what cing meant to say) would be if there were a way to get that list (the scary-looking one, not the vitamins and minerals one) from some procedure done to a vegetable.
In that sense, the link you provided does not have the same information that the author of the blog post is (apparently) compiling by hand.
"I think what would be cool/interesting (and I'm guessing what cing meant to say) would be if there were a way to get that list (the scary-looking one, not the vitamins and minerals one) from some procedure done to a vegetable.'
The identification of compounds, in particular secondary
metabolites, through a metabolomic profiling approach
encounters some major difficulties. First, the number of
commercially available standards of secondary metabolites
reported to be present in a specific plant species or
tissue is low. Second, in an automated online separation,
PDA detection, MS measurement, and/or MS/MS fragmentation
of mass signals, it is difficult to meet optimized levels
for all eluting compounds. Due to overlapping compounds,
low intensity mass signals, or difficulties in the
isolation of the mass signal for MS/MS fragmentation,
the extraction of usable information for identification
purposes can be complicated. Third, the lack of dedicated
software and databases that integrate spectroscopic and
MS data limits the identification procedure to a manual
level. Nevertheless, by these means 43 metabolites could be
readily assigned in the tomato fruit extract (Tables III
and IV), leaving more to be identified. The total number
of compounds detectable by our LC-MS system is difficult
to calculate due to the presence of mass signals from
isotopes, adducts, and unintended in-source fragmentation.
What's the opposition to MSG? I was under the impression that it was fine, though that there was a possibility that some people have adverse reactions to it — but if you're not one of those people, it's nothing to be concerned about.
What exactly is not natural about human-caused selection? As far as the banana is concerned, we're a "predator" that increasingly preys on banana plants which produce fewer seeds but bigger, sweeter ovary. It's a directed, inverse selection pressure. There is nothing "not natural" about human-directed selection for agriculture.
Being an intelligent, highly adaptive, and prolific species means that we need to exercise a degree of self-restraint. In part because we are able to over-select through cultivation for genetically homogenous food sources, that are uniformly susceptible to even more adaptive microorganisms.
I perceive certain cultivars as being less "natural" than harvested wild varieties. But you're right of course, that the selection process is in no way synthetic.
Sterile hybrids are not a new thing nor are they something that only occurs with human intervention. Darwin's finches routinely mated in pairs that produced sterile hybrids. Vegetative reproduction (ie budding or from cuttings) is also quite common in plants -- there are several plants that vegetatively reproduce by only their leaves. Human aided vegetative propagation is no different from herbivore aided propagation caused by a herbivore burying part of a vegetatively reproducing plant
The several varieties of bananas that you'll see in the store are most definitely caused by human intervention (actively trying to cross slightly different plants to produce a new hybrid) and propagation. Normally hybrids die out in the wild.
Also, once you have a sterile hybrid, there's not much in the way of selection pressure. And since bananas are clones, there's nothing for the selection pressure to act on.
Not quite true, if I understand you correctly. Clones are a form of asexual reproduction, not that different in principle from what is observed in bacteria. So plant clones do undergo mutation and natural selection.
I don't know about bacteria, but a banana variety is all essentially the same plant, propagated from a central stock. Have a look at the controls around planting and growing your own bananas, it's all red tape, permits and extremely fascist:
And for very good reason: every banana of a variety is susceptible to (eg.) a virus outbreak - there won't be any pockets of genetic variability like you would get with potatoes or citrus. If anything that affects bananas becomes widespread - no more bananas.
I was replying specifically to "since bananas are clones, there's nothing for the selection pressure to act on." That's not correct reasoning, since the DNA in plant clones can mutate, and thus, plant clones are susceptible to selection pressure.
In theory, yes - but mutation rates of clones are going to be very, very low. Bananas are also grown from a central stock to control disease, so even if there were a mutation, all the bananas are going to mutate identically.
Bacteria reproduce in all sorts of bizarre ways, including swapping DNA from other bacteria, editing their DNA, etc., so it's not really related.
I think we can all agree that what's happening with bananas is not a healthy state of affairs. I was just trying to clarify that asexual reproduction doesn't exclude natural selection, and was using bacteria as an (admittedly not perfect) analogy.
I guess if you had simply said that there's virtually no selection pressure, you wouldn't have triggered my nitpick reaction. :)
Well, it's probably a little more complicated than that.
Yes, if we define any actions taken by humans as "artificial", then it's "un-natural".
BUT, putting selective pressure on a plant to be more delicious and/or possibly nutritious is as natural with humans as it is with much of the animal kingdom. The edible fruit has an evolutionary incentive to taste better, and therefore produce more offspring.
Trying to assign a good or bad grade to this is exactly the naturalistic fallacy.
A name is not a definition. Artificial selection is a subset of natural selection. Humans are natural components of the environment for the thing being selected.
With no definition for "Not natural", you render the word "Natural" essentially meaningless- turning it into a "valid" adjective encompassing everything.
Which, for reasons that should be obvious, makes it problematic as a word for promoting certain types of food. Since humans are components of the ecosystem, twinkies are technically "natural", right?
"Natural" has more than one definition, dependent on its context. In some definitions of the word "natural", yes, twinkies are technically natural. In the more colloquial senses they are not. I prefer the more technical sense: since humans are derived from nature, they are natural, hence anything they do is natural. Unless you subscribe to some sort of man/nature metaphysical duality I don't see how you can argue that humans are not natural.
Twinkies are made from the same atoms as everything else. A glucose molecule assembled by a hypothetical atom arranger is indistinguishable from one synthesized in an organism. Twinkies are ultimately derived from nature, just as humans are ultimately derived from nature. Twinkies are a result of the congruence of multiple ideas that have evolved by natural selection. Among others, the ideas of refining and processing the chemical products of plants and animals, and how to make a twinkie-like baked good. Twinkies did not spontaneously appear in a vacuum.
Regardless of the words we use, the core idea of what we term "artificial selection" is a subset of the core idea of what we term "natural selection".
I initially disagreed with your arbitrary cutoff point for what's natural, but your condescension and lack of explanation of your argument in this post really sold me.
The author went to some effort to explain how he had an organic grown banana and then called it "all natural" instead of organic.
Probably because organic has a totally different meaning WRT chemistry.
"natural" is very much like the discredited theory of vitalism. Impossible to define such that you exclude twinkies and premade jars of frosting while still including the produce department.
As someone who is an organic-foods believer, I feel it should be noted that in USA the term "All-Natural" is not[1] a term restricted by law. It doesn't assure you of anything. In contrast, to call something "Organic" or "USDA Organic" has a very legally[2] defined process. Whether or not these certifications are truly being enforced is a different story, but I really hope they are and I try to keep an eye out for stories informing the public that a particular company/brand violated this commitment in some way.
Oddly enough, the fact that Naked fruit-juice brand had to remove[3] "All Natural" from its labeling makes no sense to me since "All Natural" means nothing. I don't know what law the courts think they enforced here.
>>“Natural foods” and “all natural foods” are widely used terms in food labeling and marketing with a variety of definitions, most of which are vague. The term is assumed to imply foods that are minimally processed and do not contain manufactured ingredients, but the lack of standards in most jurisdictions means that the term assures nothing.
>>In the United States, federal legislation defines three levels of organic foods.[8] Products made entirely with certified organic ingredients and methods can be labeled "100% organic," while only products with at least 95% organic ingredients may be labeled "organic." Both of these categories may also display the USDA Organic seal. A third category, containing a minimum of 70% organic ingredients, can be labeled "made with organic ingredients," but may not display the USDA Organic seal. In addition, products may also display the logo of the certification body that approved them.
