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"
