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by kentosi 3432 days ago
Can you back the claim up that natural chemicals are being used and are harmful?

I thought the whole point of organic is that there are no pesticides being used in the first place.

3 comments

Organic foods can still use "chemicals", you just can't use synthetically created additives (ferts, pesticides, etc.)

AFAIK they could spray the crops with arsenic and it could still be "organic".

Look at the standards for organic foods. They're quite specific in forbidding synthetic pesticides, and even that has exceptions. Naturally derived pesticides, like pyrethrin, are allowed.
Non-organic: roundup (from http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-gly...) The toxicity of the technical product (glyphosate) and the formulated product (Roundup) is nearly the same. The acute oral LD50 in the rat is 5,600 mg/kg [Rat]

Organic: vinegar (http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9922769) (LD50): 3310 mg/kg [Rat]

Of course there are hundreds of different chemicals to look at, and LD50 is not the only measure. It is enough to back up my claim though.