Addressing the antivaxxers of the food world seems to be my least-popular Substack post ever. In addition to the knee-jerk reaction of "OH NO GMO!" the idea that pesticides and herbicides are "poison" is stuck in people's heads.
I then came across this video by Hank Green on how many different plants evolved to produce caffeine as a poison. That is a great example of the below, from New Scientist, that I quote in both the above-mentioned Substack and Losing My Religions:
All fruit and vegetables contain large numbers of naturally occurring pesticides. These are the result of an arms race with insect herbivores. If we tested for these, we would find that they are just as nasty as synthetic pesticides, but present in food in higher amounts. However, they don't affect us when we consume them because their concentration is only effective against insects, not anything large.
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