dloc - 12/28/2009 22:02

Your frame of reference is wrong. All plants produce a wide range of chemicals to help them keep insects, animals and diseases at bay. And they produce even more chemicals when that are actually attacked. Over 1,500 chemicals, known to be either toxic or carcinogenic to mammals (humans), are produced by the tobacco plant. Tobacco plants are a prime insect and disease target. The common potato produces over 1000 chemicals known to be either toxic or carcinogenic to mammals.

 

There are so many of these naturally occurring hazardous and/or carcinogenic chemical in the foods we eat that mammals have developed several chemical degradation systems specifically to inactivate/neutralize them. The most widely studied is the P-450 system. The chemicals produced by plants in response to attack are not trace level chemicals.

One can easily make the toxicology case that organic foods will be less healthy. One can also  make the physiological case that the lack of exposure to toxic chemicals in "natural foods" leads to a variety of diseases.

 

So, the correct comparison is whether the chemicals applied to farm fields are more or less harmful to our bodies than those naturally produced by the plants in response to the disease & insect stresses they experience. And yes, plants produce toxic chemicals in response to weed stresses as well.