>It does not follow that it is best just because it is natural.
No, of course not. I would likely be dead right now if it weren't for
unnatural chemicals like anti-inflammatories and anti-biotics; I broke my
back a few years ago and without the aid of many, many "unnatural" things
(automobiles, hospitals, x-ray machines, and a host of different drugs) I
probably would have been dead or permanently paralyzed within a few days,
if not dead of shock in a few hours.
It is empirically observable that many unnatural things are harmless.
Electric guitars are both harmless and wonderful (so long as you don't play
the volume too loud). In fact I would argue that taking the music of
Stevie Ray Vaughan, Duane Allman, and Les Paul out of my life would be a
potent hazard to my mental health (and your physical well-being if I caught
you trying it! ;-).
There is clearly nothing whatsoever natural about hurtling through the air
free-falling at 120 miles per hour, but no evidence whatsoever that it is
any kind of health hazard (unless your parachute fails to open before you
hit the ground).
I have yet to see anyone demonstrate effectively that refrigerated food is
a health hazard.
Nevertheless when you are talking about regularly exposing the body to
anything unnatural to it, especially something chemical, you are running a
serious -risk- of ill health. Injecting a human being with just anything
at random is an -incredible- health risk, and such an obviously stupid idea
no one in his right mind would try it. However, if after -years- of
careful study you are able to develop a very SPECIFIC concoction that, if
injected into humans, conveys immunity to a deadly disease or alleviates a
crippling condition, you'll have something positive. But to do this you
don't go about just randomly sticking unnatural substances into the human
body, because you know damn well that 99.9999% of them (at least) will be
either useless or harmful.
Even then, when you finally have the vaccine or drug that is helpful, it
almost invariably will have at least some negative side effects and wreak
some damage on the body. Vaccines kill a certain number of people every
year, and arguably damage the immune systems of a great deal more. There
is practically no drug on the market which hasn't killed someone somewhere.
Even a chemical as "safe" as aspirin kills a few dozen people every year.
The simple fact is that when you expose the human metabolism directly to
foreign substances your chances of bad things happening are quite high.
And while the human system is marvelously adaptive, no one can rationally
argue that it is immune to abuse. Expose it to some toxins on a regular
basis and it will sometimes become immune. Expose it to others and it may
be able to repel the toxic effect for a while, but with repeated abuse
finally break down, or slowly build up minor problems until they become
major ones. (Atherosclerosis is probably not a health hazard when you have
1% blockage of blood flow; when you have 98% blockage you're probably going
to die soon and will probably feel like crap for some time before you do.)
The two most unnatural foods to the human body are cereal grains and dairy
products. In the case of cereal grains there is an alarming amount of data
suggesting that the proteins peculiar to cereal grains are a major
contributor to a host of diseases, and other evidence that the high
bioavailable carbohydrate that usually accompanies high-graind iets is also
a tremendous health hazard. There is other evidence that the proteins
peculiar to dairy products are a health hazard, and of course we know that
75% of the world population is intolerant to lactose, the primary
carbohydrate in dairy.
It is not impossible that something "unnatural" might be healthy, but the
rational question really should be, "Why should I believe that this
specific un-natural thing is harmless?" If you've got a good bit of
evidence that it's harmless, great, go for it, but if not, well, just
assuming it's innocent until proven guilty to me is like assuming that
cigarettes were harmless before study proved beyond any doubt that they
were deadly.
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