we all eat on a daily basis but have you
ever really thought about how many
chemicals and ingredients go into your
food I mean look at this list of
chemicals here you probably haven't
heard of most let alone tried to
pronounce them and yet you eat all of
these every single time you eat a
blueberry surprised you shouldn't be
after all everything around us is made
up of chemicals from the water you drink
to the air you breathe
literally water is a chemical substance
which is why it's frustrating when
companies consistently tout their foods
as chemical free or you hear somebody
say if you can't pronounce an ingredient
don't eat it feel like a banana hope
you're ready for the chemical goodness
that it brings seriously we can break
down any food to look like a confusing
long list of foreign ingredients stick
this list beside a hard candy and which
seems more chemical free but what about
all the awful man-made chemicals you ask
surely they're much worse in a lot of
cases yes but not always consider this
beautiful Apple compared to sodium
thiopental used in lethal injections
would you guess that the seeds within
apples have roughly the same toxicity
level the amygdalin in the seeds and the
sodium thiopental both become toxic at
around 1,000 milligrams per kilogram of
your body weight of course apples
contain very little risk because there
is so little in the seeds you'd have to
consume a lot and yet if we compare
citric acid and lemons to aspartame an
artificial sweetener we find that
neither are toxic at 1,000 milligrams
per kilogram of body weight the truth is
almost everything is poison at a high
enough dose some are lethal after just a
few milligrams while others require our
kilograms to bring death but the dose is
the poison we should be thinking about
these things but not in a
black-and-white way which chemicals are
actually more harmful we can't just give
blanket statements to natural versus
synthetic because natural chemicals
aren't always good for you and man-made
chemicals are not inherently dangerous
have you ever eaten a natural watermelon
before probably not considering in 3000
BC they were about 55 millimetres wide
80 grams 1.9 percent sugar and extremely
bitter with only six
these now watermelons are 660
millimeters wide way around 8 kilograms
have 6.2% sugar are seedless and come in
1,200 varieties thousands of years of
human guided evolution have changed
these fruits from their quote-unquote
natural form the same can be said for
sweet corn which comes from the teosinte
plant in 9,000 years they've become
1,000 times larger 3.5 times sweeter and
much easier to peel and grow now this
isn't a defense of processed foods and
it's not to say that one side is better
or worse than the other but simply that
foods are complex things and a little
perspective can go a long way
you simply can't leave a chemical free
life like some brands would like you to
think the word detox is strictly a
marketing myth
do your research actually understand
what you're eating and your health will
benefit while we're on the topic of food
myths and misconceptions be sure to
watch our videos on fresh versus frozen
food and gluten where we debunk some
commonly held beliefs and try to knock
some science into people and subscribe
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