In uk.rec.gardening Michael Saunby wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
: : "Tim Tyler" wrote in message
: : In uk.rec.gardening Tumbleweed

: : It makes reasonable sense:
: :
: : Our digestive tract has evolved to cope with natural toxins.
:
: : In which case we probably don't regard the food source as toxic at all.
: : Or not - in which case the toxins remain toxic to humans, and we
: : presumably have learned to avoid ingestion, or to process the food
: : so as to reduce the toxicity to levels we consider
: : acceptable. Similar to how we might deal with
: : foods we know to have been treated with 'artificial' toxins, really.
:
: Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

: I've never tried raw soya but I reckon it's not good to eat. A lot of what
: we eat today needs some processing, to grow it in large quanties requires
: modern technologies. What alternative do you propose - starving people?

What alternative? - to promoting pesticides as safe?

Warning people that many pesticides are not safe - and encouraging them
to eat certified-organic produce - or at the very least wash their fruit.

: The plants are happy to cooperate in making themselves taste pungent.
:
: By contrast, the artificial toxins have been designed to be tasteless and
: invisible to consumers.

: And safe!

Indeed - but that often appears to be a secondary requirement.

Corporations want their products to sell. Only if there is
significant damage which tracable back to them, and they can't
claim innocence through ignorance - do they apparently get concerned.

Safety typically comes through regulation and testing - not
from the manufacturers - but DDT should have taught us that
it is not an infallible system.
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|im |yler http://timtyler.org/