Joe Street wrote: > > > bob allen wrote: > > snip >> >> most medicines are herbs, or modeled after them and are purer and more >> predictable, with known side effects, at least after time to >> accumulate statistically relevant data. The problems with herbs as I >> see it is two fold- frequently there is a lack of proven efficacy and >> secondly, dosage is unclear. Amounts of efficacious agents varies >> from species to species and even plant to plant depending on where/how >> it is grown. >> >> > Well the way I see it is that someone tried to isolate a single > substance within a plant which seemed to have the desired effect. Then > they set out in earnest to synthesize the chemical. ( follow the money > eh?)
not to be chary, but you have a problem with someone earning a living? There are two problems here. First in the synthesis process many > kinds of unhealthy substances may be involved in the chemical synthesis > which can remain in trace amounts despite efforts to eliminate them. I only know of one example in the last couple of decades where an impurity in a synthetic compound was known to have adverse health effects. Way back when, it became popular to take L-tryptophan as a sleep aid (I don't think there ever was any proof of efficacy, but that doesn't seem to matter to a lot of folks). Anyway a Japanese company produced the tryptophan via a bacterial synthesis. The workup stage introduced an impurity that killed a couple of people. An admittedly bad, but rare occurance. Conversely, I know of several recent examples of substances sold as natural herbs, balms, etc which are unintentionally or intentionally full of impurities ranging from heavy metals, to pesticides, to steroids. http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=221548 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1480482 http://www.mothernature.com/Library/Bookshelf/Books/15/109.cfm > Second and perhaps more important is what is left out. It is a bold and > arrogant assumption that the theraputic effect of a herb is due soley to > an isolated compound. gee I wouldn't think it so arrogant Plants contain many compounds and they can and do > work synergistically when the whole plant is consumed. the problem is how do you prove it. Yes this is less > scientific in the strict sense but I am not married to science because I > find that it cuts me off from a whole realm of truth which lies just > outside of the bounds of wehat science can explain. If you can't explain it with scrupulous examination of reproduceable results, then how do you know it is real? There seems to be a real misuse of what the word science means. It is nothing more nor less than a process of gathering data which can be reproduced. Science does not > have all the answers....yet. of course not, but the only other insight I can see is mysticism. > >> >> as far as I am aware there is no such thing as unnatural salt. >> > > Well yeah salt is an inorganic compound and as such it just is what it > is. Or is it? Where was it precipitated and in the presence of what > else which will come out in the precipitate? As you know, chemicals are > never pure. that is as silly a statement as my unnatural salt (which was my intent). Everything is pure, nothing is pure, depending on degree. I will go with precise analytical procedures any day over expectations of purity which have no basis. Surely you apply scientific principles when producing biodiesel don't you? It is these traces I am curious about. ( And I haven't > done my homework here so I'm open for blasting about that...granted) > What else is in table salt vs sea salt and how much? generally very, very little. a few trace minerals like magnesium and manganese, which are picked in a decent diet. My point is you don't need to spend a bundle on exotic salt. the little difference they provide is lost in the backgound of a normal diet. These are the > questions that are of interest to me in this discussion, of course all > salt is natural, so is feldspar, and so are gamma rays for that matter > and water is a deadly asphyxiant one could say, also natural. Refined > sugar is pure right? But what is it bleached with and what does that do > to it, and what of the stuff which is removed? White flour sure looks > nice and works great for pie crusts but how much of the nutrition lets be careful of terminology here. Nutrition is somewhat vague. White flour has lots of calories, but none of the vitamins and minerals and fiber contained in the bran fraction. That is why white flour is "fortified". that is what wonder bread used to advertise: builds strong bodies 8(12) different ways.- an admittedly ironic way of saying that the fda made them put vitamins and mineral back in the flour. of the > grain remains in it after refining? And again what does the bleaching > do? White rice vs brown rice, nutrition, ditto. This is the line of > thinking I am applying to the question of sea salt vs refined salt, not > whether NaCl is natural or not. Perhaps there are cases where it is > naive to just trust what nature has provided for us and it is more > harmful than the carefully controlled laboratory product and maybe there > are traces of toxic heavy metals in sea salt that can accumulate and do > you in. I don't know because I haven't checked but I guess it's time > that I did! I still feel safe though with the generality which Darryl > recently posted about his cynicism and the rule of thumb which is " > follow the money" and what that means in terms of our food supply and > what people will do or what they are willing to overlook in the name of > profit. that is my point. there is no reason in the world to pay a couple of bucks an ounce for salt. In this case mercola is the one to "follow the money to" -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Bob Allen,http://ozarker.org/bob ------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------- The modern conservative is engaged in one of Man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness JKG -------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
