Apartment Therapy makes my head hurt
It's Saturday and I'm feelin' the need to pontificate.
Against my better judgement, I logged onto that doggone Apartment Therapy the opposite day. I have no excuse other than I became looking to examine some thing inane, and what higher location for a restore of inanity than AT?
I located this:
Over the weekend we read approximately some latest research displaying that plant crucial oils from not unusual herbs?In particular rosemary, thyme, clove, and mint?May be powerful as natural pesticides. Apparently only a few drops of the plant oils blended with water can repel or kill negative aphids and mites. This seems like exquisite news for those looking to grow vegetables and fruit at domestic with out the usage of harmful chemical compounds...
Uhhhhhh, the plant extracts noted right here; rosemary, thyme, clove and mint, are maximum absolutely dangerous chemical substances. If they weren't dangerous chemical substances, they would not kill aphids and mites.
All plant life are engaged in an hands race with the creatures that consume them. Plants protect themselves the simplest way they could, they evolve chemical defenses. Some of those defenses are aimed at a specific predator and some defenses are greater extensive spectrum. Human beings are not typically the meant goal in this palms race, and as a species we obtain a few absolutely tasty rewards. So even though I take place to love the flavor of rosemary, thyme, cloves and mint (to preserve the subject matter of the AT pablum I quoted above), I never neglect that the flavor I'm so interested in in those flora is basically a pesticide. I'm now not the supposed target, however if I consume enough rosemary it'll make me as ill as a single chunk of rosemary does a katydid or an aphid. Rosemary's taste comes from a chemical made by way of the plant to behave as a pesticide, and rosemary's truely not by myself in this. These ingredients and flavors aren't bad and I'm not saying which you shouldn't eat cilantro or mustard greens any extra. Toxicity is an issue of dose. Period. A toxic dose of cyanide is especially small. A toxic dose of water is significantly higher, however it's nonetheless a poisonous dose.
The following is an excerpt from a lecture given by means of Richard A. Muller, a professor on the University of California at Berkley. He makes some notable, though counterintuitve factors about this entire natural/ unnatural department. I LOVE this kind of stuff.
Life is rarely, if ever, an either/or proposition. Divisions between natural and unnatural are arbitrarily drawn. Natural is a meaningless label applied by marketing departments. The current vogue for "organic" foods may have standards behind that label (for the time being at least), but it too is an arbitrary line in the sand.
Have you ever observed that the worm spray Raid smells like chrysanthemums? It does because its lively factor is pyrethrin. That's chrysanthemum extract. So what is the distinction between spraying Raid on a tomato plant and developing a chrysanthemum subsequent to the identical plant? One may additionally make you sense higher however at the quit of the day, there's no real distinction.
I say it all the time, technological know-how is your friend folks.
