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bob allen wrote: snip 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?) 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. 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. Plants contain many compounds and they can and do work synergistically when the whole plant is consumed. 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. Science does not have all the answers....yet.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. 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. 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? 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 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. Joe |
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