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Does Organic Always Mean Safe?

Posted on March 30, 2017 in Uncategorized

Marketing hoopla would lead every consumer to believe that an organic label smacked on a product means that the product is safe. That is as false a claim as saying that anything synthetic, or man-made is not safe. With Green marketing movement in high gear, the only real way to understand which products are safe to use and consume and which are not is to understand the process by which they are made, and to understand their ingredients and components.

Natural, Organic, Synthetic, Safe, Dangerous

You can combine those five words together in any different combination and be speaking the truth. Nightshade is a plant, so it is natural, but it is not safe-it is extremely poisonous. Seeds from poppy plants can be used to make bread and cookies, or heroin. Both natural-one safe, one not. The safety of a product has more to do with the way it is prepared than whether it is man-made or not. The term Organic means that a product is ostensibly made 100% with naturally occurring materials. The term Natural means that a product occurs in nature, without being made in a factory. The term Synthetic refers to a product that is created by people in labs or factories, and would not exist without human intervention.Danger, Danger!

Organic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, cosmetics and clothing are products that are made from naturally occurring or growing compounds. There are many organic products that are highly toxic and dangerous. Many compounds used in medicine for treating ailments have been extracted and concentrated from plants. A natural mosquito-repelling compound is produced by chrysanthemum flowers. Pyrethrins are the naturally occurring chemical produced by flowers. It is now available as an insect repellent in both natural and man-made (synthetic) forms. Pyrethrin in organic and synthetic forms is toxic to fish and aquatic life, and to bees. The main way to be certain that fertilizers and plant treatments are safe is to ensure that they are applied properly.

Naturally Occurring, Naturally Disappearing

The most persuasive argument for using safe, natural fertilizers is that they degrade more quickly than synthetic fertilizers and compounds. Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides made from chlorinated hydrocarbons accumulate in fatty tissue, and therefore can cause chronic pesticide poisoning for people who do not handle pesticides in large, concentrated amounts. Bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers made from naturally occurring plant and animal components break down much more easily, because they are part of the naturally occurring ecosystem. Bio-fertilizers are made from components that soil organisms break down, whereas synthetic fertilizers are more like plastic water bottles-eventually they break down, but it takes thousands of times more time to do so.