Paracelsus, the father of toxicology, once wrote: "Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison."
Water is essential to our survival, but too much water can cause water intoxication, which can result in death.
Without oxygen, we die in a matter of minutes. Yet oxidative damage is part of the ageing process.
Can food be poisonous?
Food has been scarce. Starvation have been normal ever since we came into existence. Even today, starvation affects more than one billion people, or 1 in 6 people on this planet.
So whenever we had abundance of food, we over-ate in order to store extra energy to cope with the famine that were bound to happen sooner or later, except in today's developed world, it did not happen. we have had enough food ever since World War II or earlier in North America.
So we ate and ate. Are we poisoning ourselves with food?
According to Dr. Lustig, fructose in large doses is poisonous.
Most spices, when ingested in small quantity are beneficial to us, but are harmful in large doses. For example, black pepper contains small amounts of safrole, a mildly carcinogen. Garlic is another example. Although culinary quantities are normally safe for consumption, there are reports of adverse effects when large quantities are consumed as supplements.
Before we know more about how food works in relation to our health, we must treat food as everything else, that is, " Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison."
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It's a lot like the concept of hormesis. Small doses can be beneficial, but large doses potentially fatal.
ReplyDeleteThis is true of many of the essential minerals. Potassium chloride is used for execution by lethal injection, but both potassium and chlorine are essential minerals.
Radiations as well (though this isn't a food), though it's seems to be a matter of controversy exactly how much radiation is ideal for people. There is a great deal of variation in the amount of background radiation in different parts of the world.
And then there's alcohol with some legitimate studies indicating it can be beneficial in moderation.
I also recall reading the same thing about tobacco, but I don't know of any evidence supporting it.