"Hound Dog" wrote in message
...


Most of our "healthy foods" are available because of the chemicals used by
farmers.

Actually, farmers in this country are using less chemicals than 20 years
ago. Cost is the main reason, as well as their ability to grow varieties
which don't require as much treatment.

By the way, before this discussion takes a detour, let's define "chemicals",
since it was me who started this mess. I'm talking about pesticides &
herbicides, not chemical fertilizers.

Now: This past summer, I heard an NPR news story about doctors investigating
a particular type of cancer. If I recall, it was pancreatic, although it
might've been prostate. Doesn't matter. Anyway, the doctor said they were
initially curious as to why Japan had such a low rate of this disease. They
did the usual studies and almost settled on genetics as the answer, until
they looked at a large group of Japanese-Americans, factored in (or out)
diet as much as possible, and found that after living here for a certain
period of time, this group had the disease as often as the population as a
whole. The theory: Once someone lives in our fishbowl, they end up with the
same problems.

The chemical companies like to point out that because the environment is
such a complex system, it's extremely difficult to prove a connection
between a pesticide and the diseases it may cause. They're right. But, by
making that statement, they are completely nullifying *all* the so-called
research they used to point at (beginning in the 1960s) which supposedly
proved that certain products were safe.

In fact, without a valid test population of HUMANS, in a study conducted in
the same way as those done for new drugs, you will never see proof of the
safety of any agricultural/garden chemicals. Therefore, they only sane
course is to use little or none.