Editorial Comment: "Natural" Does Not Mean "Better"

(Don't forget, my daily editorial comment airs weekday mornings at 6:20 with Bruce Kenyon and the Morning News, and again at 12:20pm with Wayne Nelson and Today So Far.)

Thursday's editorial comment: 

Short of describing your product as "green", there's probably no more popular marketing buzz words these days than "organic" or "natural".

There's plenty of nasty and dangerous stuff that occurs naturally, mind you - but these days it seems we get all warm and fuzzy when something's described to us as "natural".

 

We seem to get the exact opposite feeling when it comes to anything "artificial" or "synthetic", though it's unclear why

Chemicals are chemicals - some are safe, some are dangerous. It's irrelevent whether they are natural or artificial.

 

We've certainly seen this juxtaposition throughout the debate in Calgary and elsewhere over whether to ban the cosmetic use pesticides.

We were frequently told about how important it was to phase out the use of these dangerous, man-made chemicals that are wreaking havoc on the environment.

We were also frequently reminded that there are nice, safe natural and organic alternatives to these nasty chemicals.

But is that really the case? Not so, it would seem.

 

A new study out of the University of Guelph finds that natural pesticides could actually cause more environmental damage. Not only that, but they were less effective, too.

For example, when it came to killing aphids, the aphids had to be practically smothered by the natural pestidice - which also have the effect of killing other bugs who prey on aphids.

"Natural" and "organic" might sound better, but it does not necessarily mean better.