If Toxins Scare You, Stop Eating

When I was younger, only Rachel Carson was ruining dinner and her evidence-by-anecdote heritage in Silent Spring still lingers with us today. To many in America, 'carcinogens' are a bad word, DDT will give you cancer 6 months after you spray it on crops and all chemicals are bad. And that is just among Grist readers. Once you broaden it out to the rest of progressives, you will find them paralyzed by "chemophobia" and a broad contempt for science.(1)

But there is bad news even for NPR listeners, with their gluten-free and vegan menu.(2) If you are afraid of chemicals, you are screwed. Everything you eat is going to be stuffed full of chemicals that have been shown to be toxins and carcinogens when studied in rodents. Everything "If these were synthetic rather than natural (as they are), they would be banned from our diets,“ notes Dr. Gilbert Ross of the American Council on Science and Health.

Yep, you are eating poisons. But they are natural poisons, that is what the naturalistic fallacy is and it's why an alarming number of people believe that 'chemicals' are bad today yet organic food and its carcinogens, mutagens and natural pesticides are somehow healthier.

Enjoy solanine, arsenic, and chaconine? Have some mashed potatoes with a side of hydrogen cyanide - I mean Lima beans. If you live on the coast here in California, you might prefer the hallucinogenic compound myristicin - grab some carrots for that.

The fact is that the modern naturalistic fallacy ignores what people who were actually far closer to nature in the past knew - the dose makes the poison. Salt is essential, too much of it will kill you.

With that in mind:

Here are the Organic Foods you need to avoid this Thanksgiving and why:

Celery - caffeic acid, rodent carcinogen
Broccoli - allyl isothiocyanate, rodent carcinogen
Potatoes - not just solanine, arsenic, and chaconine but also caffeic acidand ethyl alcohol, a rodent and human carcinogen. No wonder the Irish came to America.
Rolls with butter - don't even get me started. You are ingesting acetaldehyde, benzene, ethyl carbonate and more, all rodent carcinogens. Also, if you have Celiac disease, the rolls will make you sick. If you are trying to be Gwyneth Paltrow, they will make you annoyed no one takes you seriously.
Turkey - Heterocyclic amines, rodent carcinogens and mutagens.
Stuffing - a lot, including some of the ones mentioned above plus acrylamide, dihydrazines and more. Also, if you have Celiac disease, the stuffing will make you sick. If you are trying to be Gwyneth Paltrow, they will make you annoyed no one takes you seriously.
Cranberry sauce - furan derivatives: mutagens
Pumpkin pie - a lot fewer toxic chemicals than than apple pie, but still has benzo(a)pyrene, coumarin, methyl eugenol and safrole
Coffee - a lot of what is above, plus hydrogen peroxide, a mutant and rodent carcinogen and a great way to deal with cuts.

No, "I will eat prime rib instead of turkey" will not help. It has those heterocyclic amines, plus benzene and psoralens. Also, roast beast will not help you sleep through the Dallas football game like turkey will. Even the jasmine tea is not safer than the coffee, it has benzo(a)pyrene and quercetin glycosides, which are both mutagen and rodent carcinogens. Read an scary entire menu at ACSH.

As you can see, all the food has toxic chemicals - because in rodent studies almost anything can be harmful. The term "carcinogens" is even more misunderstood in progressive science media than "false equivalence" is. Take any part of Thanksgiving dinner and there are so many rodent carcinogens that even Gilles-Eric Séralini could write a paper claiming they cause cancer.

What gets left out of Scare Journalism Of The Week stories is that in rodent studies, these natural carcinogens are killing just as many as synthetic chemicals are.

Even organic food can't protect us from chemicals. Sorry, Rachel.