100% All Natural Nonsense
Posted by skeptologic on April 25, 2008
As I’ve mentioned before, one of my pet peeves is the word natural when used to market products. The word seems to be everywhere these days. I see it on television commercials for food products, baby formula, soap, cosmetics, pretty much everything. As I walk down the aisle at the grocery store it is unavoidable on package after package. What it is about that word that makes every company want to slap it on their products? What exactly does it mean? I can understand if that means you would rather eat a peach off the tree instead of from a can, or if you want real blueberries in your muffin instead of an artificial thing that looks like a blueberry. However, I think the misuse and overuse of this word is causing some misconceptions in our society.
People seem to have the idea that if a product is natural that somehow that means that it can’t hurt you. In popular culture the words “all natural” have become synonymous with “perfectly safe.” This is simply not true. There are many things in nature that are very harmful and would not make good products for human consumption. I’ll throw out a few ideas. How about a skin cream made from poison oak. It’s all natural. Or a lotion made from the toxin of the Golden Poison Frog. One milligram of this poison is enough to kill 10 to 20 humans. It’s all natural. Anyone want to drink some mercury or eat some lead? They’re all natural. Anyone want a nasal spray loaded with the influenza virus? It’s all natural. There are countless plants, fungi, bacteria, viruses, and poisons found in nature that will kill you. Now of course I am not saying that every product being marketed as natural is unsafe, but just because something is natural should not give you a warm fuzzy feeling that whatever it is will not harm you.
So what exactly is the harm that this way of thinking can cause? A few years ago I read a new story about a teenage girl who nearly died after ingesting a plant that someone told her could get her high. I’ll never forget the quote from her in the report. She said something like “It was all natural so I didn’t think it would have any chemicals in it.” There sure is a lot wrong with that statement. It shows a frightening example of how a lack of basic science knowledge can be dangerous. Everything is made of chemicals, even us. Humans are mostly Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, and Nitrogen, for example. Air is a chemical, and so is water, get the idea? What matters is if the chemicals in question are toxic or not. It makes no difference if the compounds are found in nature or created in a lab.
This misguided notion about natural being automatically better is what is leading many people to unproven alternative or naturopathic medicine. Bottom line: Herbs are drugs. There is nothing special about them that makes them safer or better than drugs that have been tested and approved by the FDA for safety and efficacy. If an herb contains a compound that can heal something, wouldn’t you rather be sure that you are getting the right dose? Wouldn’t you rather be sure that what is in on the label is exactly what is in the bottle? Wouldn’t you rather know about any potential side effects and drug interactions? The next time someone who is not a doctor offers you something as a potential cure and says not to worry because it’s “all natural,” just remind them “so is arsenic.”
Melody said
Heh. Yeah, this irritates me on pretty much a daily basis when I open up my fridge. Of course it’s pretty much infiltrated a lot of food markets, and I’m sure that sooner or later we’ll be seeing “all natural twinkies” (which I’m sure won’t make you fat!), but especially since I am vegetarian and the companies making some specialty foods (like vegetarian jello) try to appeal to the “natural is always better” segment, which doesn’t hurt their sway with the veggie consumers either. But still, when I was at the store and saw a vegetarian jello proclaiming “all natural” and “fat free” I thought: “Code for: loaded with sugar!” Which, while not the evil monster that some people think, can still make you gain weight unlike an uncomfortable amount of people I’ve met seem to think.
Ever since reading an article about “functional foods”, sometimes putting herbs and stuff in foods and other things, I have been extra careful to check ingredients in things like teas and items that appear to appear to “health food crowd” like vitamin waters that I like for the taste, just to be on the safe side. I once finished eating a microwave noodle dish that tasted kind of funny and had hard green things in it (it was awful-tasting) and found out it listed chlorophyll.
Along the lines of this “natural is always better” thing seems to be when people who are very anti-drug/vaccine/surgery/whatever, say that you can prevent the illness by doing things like eating right and getting sunshine and stuff. Sure, that may improve their general well-being compared to someone who doesn’t exercise, eats junk food every day and never leaves their house, but who on this or any other planet for that matter thinks that’ll protect you from pertussis? I mean, wow. I just can’t imagine. The other night, I was lying down and suddenly started coughing, non-stop, for about 10 minutes or so. It then stopped, but at that point my parents had got up and were concerned and trying to see if there was anything to do for me, since I was having trouble taking in breaths, and were starting to call a doctor. I don’t think it was pertussis since things like runny nose and mild cough have lasted for a few months before getting more severe and was probably due to my being ill and shifting around a lot before bed, but it’s not like it’s ruled out. Ah, yes, pertussis – yet another natural thing!
Melody said
Whoops. Hit submit too soon. Forgot to mention the reason for my anecdote – intense coughing is not fun, even if you’re not dying or facing encephalitis. The next morning, my throat was sore enough that it was hard for me to talk and ask things like a drink, and I’d only had a few minutes of coughing bouts. When it happened again the next night it was much less time (probably about three minutes only) but still was hard to breathe and made me feel like death during those three minutes! I was making a funny sound when I was struggling to breathe which concerned my dad and made me wonder about pertussis, but I don’t go out much anyway, maybe a couple times every few months just to go to the doctors, or one time to a store after a colonoscopy attempt (my sedation had an opposite effect and I was wide alert without pain control). So I don’t think it is too urgent now, but boy then I sure was fearing another emergency trip.
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