8 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About 'Scary' Chemicals
5. ‘Natural’ Chemicals Are Much Safer Than Manmade Ones
Why is it that 21st century humans, the pinnacle of millions of years of evolution, so often anthropomorphise nature into some sort of lovely, caring mother figure who wants nothing more than to cradle us in her generous bosom?
The truth is that if nature were actually personified she would be a vicious psychopath armed with everything from sharp pointy things to blasts of radioactivity. At best, nature really doesn’t care about you. At worst, she just wants to feed you to the next thing in the chain.
All sorts of horribly deadly things are entirely naturally-occurring. We’ve already mentioned arsenic. Then there’s the famous Botox, or botulinum toxin, which is naturally produced by certain bacteria. Just a couple of teaspoons of that would be enough to kill everyone in the UK. There are hundreds of horribly poisonous plants. Take water hemlock for example, known colloquially as ‘death-of-man’ – which ought to be a bit of a clue. The root contains cicutoxin, a central nervous system stimulant that induces seizures, and will easily kill if eaten. And let’s not forget the daddy of them all: nicotine. Just a few drops of pure nicotine could kill an adult, and that’s before we even mention the millions of people who’ve fallen foul of tobacco addiction and its associated health conditions.
While manmade chemicals can of course be just as dangerous, at least the ones we’re regularly exposed to, such as food additives and pharmaceuticals, have to pass through rigorously quality and safety tests, and follow careful labelling rules, before they get anywhere near our supermarkets and pharmacies.
Plants, unfortunately, have no such labelling system. Not in this world, anyway.