Start Date: August 10, 2025
I have heard that “Fear Not” and “Be Not Afraid” are among the most common statements made in the Bible. Still there are many things to fear and sometimes it is easy to just be afraid.
But I would like to try and assuage some concerns that come up with regard to diet, food, and agriculture. Much of it really comes down to confusion and unfamiliarity with basic life science. I understand. I didn’t get much out of biology either.
But if you give me a few minutes I will try to earn them.
FEAR OF BIG WORDS
First is what I put in the category of “fear of big words.”
You have at some point probably heard some person, with an interest in healthy diet, say that you should look at the ingredient labels in the store. Then the direction is, “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it”.
Unfortunately that underestimates most of our ignorance of the taxonomy (naming) of basic nutrients.
Many years ago I saw a clever article in a magazine. It had glossy pictures, beneath which were ingredient labels with strange polysyllabic words. The pictures were of beautiful pieces of produce such as an orange, or a banana etc. The complex words were not because of some additive or pesticide, they were just the formal names of basic nutrients.
For orange, there is “ascorbic acid” which is simply vitamin C, for banana, pyridoxine which is vitamin B6, for avocado, lutein, for eggs, pantothenic acid AKA vitamin B5.
Just think of all those lovely foods and nutrients you would miss out on if they came in a box with an ingredient label.
“Fear Not”
CHEMICAL
Having gotten past big words, let’s look into “chemical” additives.
At the risk of revealing ignorance I once asked a Ph.D. chemist what the word “chemical” really means.
As I thought, it is an abbreviation for “chemical compound”. So basically anything that isn’t a pure element, gold comes to mind, is a “chemical”
In 1997 a 14 year old high school student in Idaho did a science fair project that examined one particular chemical, hydroxyl acid [1,2].
He summarized the risk factors and assessed where it may be encountered and then proposed a ban.
Here are some of the basics
It is a colorless, odorless and tasteless substance
It may cause corrosion of metals, erosion of landscape, severe burns, nausea, vomiting, and death by inhalation. It is a component of acid rain and has been found in excised tumors.
Yet it is still used as a food additive, industrial coolant, and is detected on produce.
He persuaded many of his schoolmates that it should be banned.
So what exactly did this high school ban?
Well
DHMO = Dihydrogen Monoxide = Two Hydrogen Atoms and One Oxygen Atom = H2O.
Yes, they banned water!
So before we ban using chemicals in agriculture or as food additives, we had best be more specific. You can live without many things. Water is not one of them.
So before you worry about a “chemical”, check out which it is. If it is DHMO
“Fear Not”
ORGANIC
Then there is “organic”.
I first encountered the term, with regard to food, on a menu in a restaurant in CA in the early 1990’s. Having passed organic chemistry, albeit barely, I was curious as to how it would be possible to have an inorganic chicken, unless it was made of plastic.
Organic molecules are those based on carbon combined with hydrogen, oxygen, and or nitrogen. There have been science fiction programs, e.g. Star Trek, that purported silicon based life, but on planet Earth living things are organic.
It seems that the label “ORGANIC” has been co-opted, abused, and confused such that it can mean many things or nothing leading to the requirement of all manner of regulations.
For livestock it seems to refer to an absence of hormones or antibiotics.
With plants it generally implies an absence of synthetic fertilizer and pesticides. When you get a chance please see my post “Death by Natural Causes” [3] citing the need for 40% of humans to die if we suddenly switch to all organic farming. It was attempted in Sri Lanka in 2021. The result was mass starvation, decimated farms, and an insurrection forcing the then president to leave the country. The simple reason is that “organic” farming doesn’t yield enough food for 8 billion people.
Happily, plants make no distinction between organic and inorganic fertilizers at the level of essential nutrients. They will convert them into the form that is required for absorption [4,5].
“Fear Not”
NATURAL
So getting past all the problems with Big Words, vague terms (Organic), and fear of chemicals (i.e. most molecules) what is it that we truly want?
It seems that what people want is for things to be “natural” and not, as some would see it, contaminated by man-made additives.
Or do we?
On first blush that seems reasonable. In some cases it may be desirable. A fresh piece of fruit, a farm fresh egg. I recall a co-worker giving me an apricot from his tree. It definitely tasted better than what I tried from a store.
But on some level there seems to be some Neo-Calvinism suggesting that we all are sinners who corrupt everything we touch. God (or Mother Nature) provides a perfect Eden with pure flora and fauna and then we, who are inherently evil and not part of nature, add things to our detriment.
This has evolved into the mantra that “Natural is Healthy”
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Among the most toxic substances known to man are those that are naturally occurring, including arsenic, botulinum toxin, cyanide, hemlock, and ricin.
Very natural, VERY UNHEALTHY.
Fortunately humans have devised synthetic antibiotics to kill natural but unhealthy bacteria, synthetic fertilizers to increase crop yields, and preservatives to keep foods from going bad.
Even the reviled pesticide DDT is estimated to have saved 500 million lives from malaria by 1970 [6]. It was banned for a time due to an environmental scare. However that caused an inevitable resurgence. So in 2006 the World Health Organization endorsed its use in particularly vulnerable regions of Africa [7]. Mosquitos, fleas, and the parasites that cause malaria, are all natural but not at all healthy for humans.
Species have survival instincts. With humans it allows them to create synthetic protections from nature’s worst hazards. Live to fight another day. So ..
“Fear Not”
REFERENCES
[1] Ferro, Shaunacy, “The 14-Year-Old Who Convinced People to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide”, June 17, 2017, https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/501907/14-year-old-who-convinced-people-ban-dihydrogen-monoxide
[2] “Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!”, https://www.csun.edu/science/ref/humor/dhmo.html
[3] “Death by Natural Causes”, November 29, 2022, https://notcommonsense.com/death-by-natural-causes/
[4] Hill, John, W., “Chemistry for Changing Times”, Sixth Edition, MacMillan, 1992, Section 18.3,
[5] “Plants can’t tell the difference: Understanding the pros and cons of organic and inorganic hydroponic fertilizers”, Growing Science, February 16, 2022, https://emeraldharvest.co/organic-vs-inorganic-fertilizer/
[6] Lai, Deepak, “Bring Back DDT”, CATO Institute, April 26, 2016, https://www.cato.org/commentary/bring-back-ddt
[7] Ganzel, Bill, “Insecticides – DDT’s Rise, Fall & Rise Again“, Gangle Group, 2009, https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farming-in-the-70s/pests-weeds/how-insecticides-work/insecticides-ddts-rise-fall-rise-again/