Making it Natural

 

          

Carts don’t roll as smoothly in those isles, I notice. Traffic backs up as shoppers read the nutrition labels, looking for whatever the buzz is this year—low fat, low carb, or my favorite, made with whole grain.  Food fads come and go, but the words “organic” and “natural” are as persistent as dandelions in a strawberry patch. 

Vitamin supplements are especially fond of those words. I remember a friend who’d “lost weight and had so much energy” using a particular brand of supplements containing ephedra, back before it was banned. She took about forty pills a day

In the way that those things usually work, my friend had become a dealer so she could get a discount on her own vitamins. When she tried to sell the supplements to me, she admitted that they were expensive. “But they’re worth it,” she claimed, because they were “all natural.”

           
“Yeah,” I said. “So is cyanide.”       

           
Gardeners often believe that vitamins and minerals are healthiest in the original packaging—the leaves, roots, fruits and stems they grew in. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t susceptible to a little verbal voodoo. The word “organic” on a product is a seal of approval we almost do not question.

           
“Organic” is one of those shape-shifty words. In the field of chemistry, it simply means “carbon-based.” In one of life’s little ironies, many of the pesticides banned in organic gardening are, in fact, synthesized from organic compounds.

           
The meaning of organic is somewhat different in gardening circles. In order for produce to be certified organic, farmers must avoid synthetic products. They can, however, use pesticides and herbicides, as long as they are derived from plant and mineral sources and are on an approved list.

           
It would be nice if organic equaled safe, but it ain’t necessarily so.

The West Virginia University Extension Service has a web page entitled “Relative Toxicity of Some Common House and Garden Insecticides.” It compares the amount of various pesticides it would take to kill a 150 pound person, whether taken orally or absorbed through the skin. 

           
“I’m safe for another few pounds,” I thought, as I examined the list. I was surprised to note that rotenone and nicotine, two pesticides on the approved list, are some of the most highly toxic of ingredients. Pyrethrum, the chemical in marigolds that repels bugs, is fairly toxic as well. 

           
However, the amount of a pesticide it would take to kill someone isn’t the only factor we need to take into account. For instance, bacillus thuringiensis, commonly called BT, is non-toxic. We could use it for ice cream topping, and it wouldn’t hurt us.  However, it’s not totally innocuous, because it’s indiscriminate. It will kill beneficial insects like honeybees just as quickly as it will kill potato bugs. 

           
Insecticidal soaps are also non-toxic, and they don’t kill indiscriminately. They need to come into contact with insects in order to kill them, so they don’t threaten the neighbor’s hive. However, incorrectly applied, they can burn plants, and once they dry, they don’t work.

           
All being equal, it’s probably true that as a rule, organic pesticides are better than synthetic ones. But only as a rule. A wise gardener will take into account how toxic a product is, how long it will remain toxic, and how the toxins will interact with other species and with the gardener’s specific conditions.

           
And it might not hurt to forget losing those last twenty pounds, just in case.