Comments on: The Secret Life of Organic Vegetables

By: Juan Fluaitt

Juan Fluaitt — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:47:03 +0000

I’ve glanced at a number of of your posts and I had been curious if you were interesting in swapping webpage links? I am constantly seeking to swap links with personal blogs about the same subjects! I look forward to hearing back from you in the near future.

By: Noah Ouellette

Noah Ouellette — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:07:41 +0000

Lyric you should run as VP of Agriculture alongside Francis. Good discussion guys, I am enjoying it. I 'm gonna take a break though and go eat a carrot in my fridge… I hope I survive!

By: Francis Thicke

Francis Thicke — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:28:01 +0000

The first link is to a review article in the journal Applied Biochemistry and Microbiology (2000). The article reads "An advantage of medicinal plants is that they provide patients with a comple of natural compounds, have smoother action and are better tolerated than synthetic drugs, and produce fewer allergic reations." It gives several references. unfortunately, only the first page of the review article is displayed, so you cannot source the references.

By: Lyricd

Lyricd — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:24:59 +0000

Neither of the links provided seems to offer supporting evidence for using whole plants instead of the isolated active ingredients; how did you arrive at this conclusion?

By: Francis Thicke

Francis Thicke — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:56:00 +0000

You are right that most domesticated plants and animals have been bred to enhance certain traits — most commonly yield. I am not familiar with a lot of plants or animals that have been bred to be less toxic. One problem that is cropping us with all the emphasis on crop yields is that modern crops are losing some of their nutritional value in place of the higher yield, which is sometimes just more starch.

According to Darwin, species change over time (evolve) through natural selection (via survival of the fittest). With traditional breeding techniques, humans select which traits survive, but it is still selecting within the natural gene pool. With genetic engineering, life forms can be created that are not possible with natural breeding, and which may have novel effects when eaten and metabolized.

By: Francis Thicke

Francis Thicke — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:20:52 +0000

I did a quick google on "medicinal plants, active ingredients, cofactors" and came up with 66,000 hits. The first one was a scientific paper with references:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m880m14489130...

Wikipedia had an explanation as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacognosy

I am sure you can find lots of references. I believe Ayurveda also supports that principle.