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RE: Re: [RC] [RC] Natural v. Un? natural??? - heidi

A natural thing is something that is used in it's "natural" form, such as
cranberry juice to treat or prevent UTIs. The main difference is the
level
to which humans have messed around with the substance to make it into
a form
that doesn't occur naturally.

Natural products can have positive benefits, as they often have weak
substances that illicit a response, but they can't have the power of
"un-natural" altered substances. Also, natural substances are often
unregulated.


I can think of several "natural" substances that, when consumed in their 
"natural" form are highly toxic and very deadly, and have no useful or positive 
effects at all.  A few bites of the root of a water hemlock is enough to kill a 
one-ton bull.  I've had the unpleasant experience of finding half a dozen cows 
dead in one small patch of the variety of larkspur that grows in creek bottoms. 
I nearly lost a classmate when I was in elementary school because he consumed 
a little bit of a toxic plant that grows around here--I think it was henbane, 
but don't recall for sure.  In some instances, critters can get enough cyanide 
from naturally occurring fruit pits to be lethal.

No, it doesn't take humans "messing around" with many substances to make them 
toxic--they just come that way "naturally..."

Heidi

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