Rex Harrill wrote:

> What the chemical purveyors don't want to talk about is the lack of natural
> break-down, or detoxifying organisms or enzymes needed to clean up their
> substances.  For instance, even though cockroaches and other vermin have
> adapted to DDT, it is still abundant in the environment and we're suffering.
> DDT should never have been released until the labs developed bacteria that
> could decompose it.  The two could have been loosed together.

Thanks for your comment. I agree that DDT is bad, and I don't think that
Ames' article should be used to justify artificial chemicals, since they
cause health risks and/or accumulate in nature. However, I think he has a
good point when he says that natural pesticides can be as harmful as
artificial pesticides (and some of them can also accumulate), so they
should be tested as carefully as any artificial chemical.

Also, the other important issue is that, in the public's mind,
"organic"="natural"="safe", which is far from necessarily true (he cites
an example in his article). Some artificial substances are not necessarily
more dangerous than natural ones [but again, things can become problematic
if they accumulate in the environment].

> Sadly, none of Dr. Ames reports refers to the Brix of the produce he tested.
> It's easy for me to imagine he used typical toxic store-bought fruits and
> vegetables and therefore came up with erroneous values and conclusions.  To
> mention an extreme possibility, think about the wrongness of his results if he
> had inadvertently used, say, unripened persimmons.

It's true that there are many uncontrolled variables, but I don't think
high-Brix potatoes contain less solanin, or high-Brix parsnips contain
less psoralens. Ames also cites examples of comparisons between domestic
vegetables and their wild counterparts, and finds that the wild ones are
more toxic (although they are supposedly of higher quality by your
standards).

Best wishes,

Jean-Louis
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