This was posted previously. A reality check. I reproduce it here for those too lazy to look it up:
From Jeffrey Steingarten, author of "The Man Who Ate Everything." Quote ever so slightly modified...
"Imagine that you are a juicy and attractive carrot. All around you are predators--germs and fungi, bugs and snails, birds and animals--who see you as nothing more than their next meal. You have no house to hide in, no feet for running away, no money with which to buy a gun. It's a real jungle out there, and even the neighboring vegetables covet your place in the sun. What do you do? You pull yourself together and evolve a complex system of chemical warfare."
Additional information from Stone Glasgow:
We routinely tolerate toxic chemicals in the food we eat every day. Even organic fruits and vegetables contain extremely toxic chemicals. For every gram of artificial pesticide residue we consume, we eat over 22 pounds of natural toxins found the vegetables themselves.
As an example, I've prepared a sampling of a carrot's ingredients, other than carbohydrates, fat, water, fiber, and protein, a carrot contains 371 measurable compounds, many of them extremely toxic to humans.
Listed below the ingredients list I have compiled a listing of the chemical properties of these chemicals. You'll see that the chemicals in carrots are used as sunscreens, pesticides, tranquilizers, contraceptives, decongestants, refrigerants, preservatives, soap, sedatives, and rat poison. Many are carcinogenic and toxic to the heart and central nervous system.
We are able to ingest carrots and receive a net health benefit because the poisons are found in small amounts. As you can see, carrots are anything but "chemical free."
A carrot contains:
ALANINE, ACETONE, ACETALDEHYDE, ALPHA LINOLENIC ACID, ALUMINUM, ARSENIC, ASARONE, ALPHA TERPINENE, BORNYL ACETATE, BORON, BROMINE, BUTYRIC ACID, CADMIUM, CAMPHOR, CHOLESTEROL, CHOLINE, CHROMIUM, COBALT, CYSTINE, CYSTEINE, ETHANOL, FORMIC ACID, FUMARIC ACID, GLUTAMIC ACID, HYDROGEN CYANIDE, ISOBUTYRIC ACID, ISOPRENE, LAURIC ACID, LEAD, LECITHIN, LITHIUM, LYSINE, MALIC ACID, MERCURY, METHYLAMINE, MYRISTICIN, NICKEL, OXALIC ACID, PHENYLALANINE, PHOSPHORUS, QUERCETIN, SILICON, STEARIC ACID, SULFUR, TARTARIC ACID, TIN, TITANIUM, TRYPTOPHAN, XYLITOL.
