All-Natural Snake Oil: Difference between revisions

* Bottled water companies have recently been getting flak for claiming that their water is sourced from a unique spring in the Andes/Maine/France/wherever, when in fact, it is just tap water. This one was ''mercilessly'' debunked on ''[[Penn and Teller Bullshit|Penn & Teller: Bullshit!]]''.

** Not only that, but empty water bottles are a major source of litter and landfill waste. There's a reason why most environmentalists not only swear by tap water (or filtration if the tap is unsafe to drink), but push for stores and cafeterias to not sell bottled water.

*** Large parts of the world have better methods of cleaning tap water than chlorinating it. In the Netherlands and New York City, for example, tap water rated better in double blind taste tests.

** The main exception to this rule is if your local tap water is heavily polluted. This problem isn't restricted to developing areas of the world -- many American cities have problems with water quality (although buying filtered taps can alleviate most of this), and FEMA and similar groups recommend keeping big jugs of water in case a disaster contaminates the water supply or otherwise makes it unusable.

** In the entire western world, tap water actually has stricter purity standards than bottled/"mineral" water. This lead to at least one case in Germany in which a spring originally designated for tap water had to be converted into a bottled water factory. The bottled water is still available, in case you wonder...

* Speaking of water, check your shampoo bottle. Odds are, one of the ingredients listed will be "aqua", [[Altum Videtur|which is just another name for water]].

** Of course it's nothing but wax. It's homeopathic, which by definition means that it contains absolutely no active ingredient.

** Plus the advertising doesn't actually say that it treats headaches. It just says to apply directly to the forehead.

* And who can forget Enzyte Bob, with his herbal supplements for "natural male enhancement"?

** This is true for a lot of [[Spammer|spam]] advertisements for "male enhancement" products, often tauting "all-natural [[Spice Rack Panacea|herbal forumla]]" and further stating that it was "[[Irony|developed for years by a team of dedicated scientists]]."

** Amazingly, a well-built, properly ran nuclear facility is safer and more environmentally friendly than coal power. Chernobyl was partially due to poor construction, but the direct cause was a particularly egregious case of human error; scientists ''[[Too Dumb to Live|intentionally disengaged all fail-safes and safety protocols]]'' in the reactor and put massive strain on it ''to see if it could safely shut down under those conditions'', while the actual accident was caused by a design fault exposed when it did.

*** Actually and very much ironically, the experiment which led to the Chernobyl disaster (due to various reasons, including the fact that the experienced crew trained to perform the experiment was rotated due to a delay, which meant a different, inexperienced crew had to do the experiment, which is just another "dumb" on the huge heap that led to the accident on its own and its consequences worldwide) was meant to improve the safety of the plant. You see, the problem the engineers brought up was that in a case when external power was not available (ie. the power grid fails, which was not all that uncommon and wouldn't be helped in the least by suddenly losing 3200MW from the nuclear power plant itself) the pumps that made the coolant flow would not function and the lack of cooling (even after the core is shut down, it would retain a lot of waste heat before stabilizing) would lead to core damage (not dangerous, but very expensive and putting the plant out of order for quite a long time). The experiment was meant to allow the braking turbines to power the pumps before the backup diesel generators could kick in (about a minute or so, which is quite a problem when the core still produces 200MW or so). The reasoning behind the experiment was sound, the accident itself was very unfortunate. Yeah, it couldn't happen in a properly built nuclear power plant (by today's standards), but that argument is so easy to make in hindsight. Even then, it required a lot of failures in order to bring the plant down (like say, a Tsunami wiping out the backup plan, the backup-backup plan, and destroying all the infrastructure for emergency responders use to respond). It's just that lots of them aren't even possible in a modern plant. However, most of them were only a result of trying too hard.

*** [[Futurama|Uh-oh, I shouldn't have had seconds...]]

* The chemical used to approximate the taste of almonds comes in both natural and artificial. The natural-extract version is more expensive than the artificial one. The trick? The natural extract comes from peach pits and contains trace amounts of ''cyanide'' that the artificially-created version does not.

*** Although, cyanide is worthy of note as a toxin because it's deadly in very low concentrations and kills quickly, making it a very effective poison.

** And, of course, the [[Bitter Almonds]] staple of crime shows wouldn't exist without that all-natural cyanide in said bitter almonds.

* Providing the second quote for this page is ''[[Cracked]]'''s list of [http://www.cracked.com/article_18549_8-health-foods-that-are-bad-your-health.html "8 Health Foods That Are Bad For Your Health"], which puts herbal supplements squarely at Number One. The article points out that, unlike pharmaceutical medicines, alternative and herbal remedies aren't regulated by the FDA, which means that some of them can be downright dangerous. In addition to herbal supplements, the article notes the dangers of such "health" foods as fast food salads <ref>they're usually just as unhealthy as the fast food place's regular selection, if not more so</ref>, granola/cereal bars <ref>many of them are as fattening as candy bars thanks to all the chocolate and processed fruit they have, and the ones that aren't taste like, well, granola</ref>, bran muffins <ref>they're still almost as fatty as regular muffins</ref> and vitamin water <ref>they have about two-thirds the sugar of a can of Coke or Pepsi, and the "low-calorie" versions have artificial sweeteners, which the granola crowd thinks are of questionable safety</ref>.

** The non-regulation of "supplements" is a major problem for athletes who use protein powders, as they fall into this regulation category even though they're definitely food, and used in much larger amounts.

** [[It Got Worse]]: Trudeau's schtick is to sell you "natural cures" so he'll get your credit card.

* In Australia there is an ad for Raid (Bug spray) that claims that mums will like it cause it's all natural. As if that makes the poison any better.

** ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Jingo|Jingo]]'' gently winds up the tendency of shampoos to use "herbs" when the Watch investigates {{spoiler|Snowy Slopes, the Man With the Steel-Toothed Comb, who has tried virtually every hair care product available in Ankh-Morpork to treat his horrendous dandruff, mostly on the virtue that they have herbs.}} Angua (who [[Our Werewolves Are Different|has some hair problems herself]]), muses that you stuff a bunch of weeds in a shampoo bottle, and you have herbs.

** In ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Going Postal|Going Postal]]'', Tolliver Groat makes all his own medicines using natural ingredients... like, say, arsenic and sulfur. His throat lozenges dissolve walls.

*** He also has a chest warmer made of goose grease and bread pudding. Apparently he stuffs that down his shirt instead of down his throat but it keeps him going so whatever works.

** Numerous of his books refer to a drink called Scumble, which, as is innocently said, is made of apples - well, mostly apples. However, it is [[Gargle Blaster|one of the most strongly alcoholic liquors known on the Disc.]] Nanny Ogg's cooking contains numerous variations.

{{quote| Its alright dear, I've used fat-free fat.}}

* [http://plover.net/~bonds/atkins.html Dr. Atkins' Cholera Revolution]!

* The whole bottled water thing was mocked in the ''Mother Nature's Son'' episode of [[Only Fools and Horses]], with the bottled water coming from the tap and being bottled in a production line through their kitchen. Referenced a lot in UK media at the exact time Coca Cola's Dasani brand was also found out to be purely tap water, and made slightly more funny when it turned out that the real life example also had something in the water supply.

* In [http://www.zug.com/pranks/natural/ this article], a man puts the idea that 'all natural' is the same as 'good for you' to the test- by eating all natural soap, toiletries, pet treats and aphrodisiacs.

=== [[Truth in Television]]: [[Real Life]] examples that sound like parodies: ===

* In the 1920s and 1930s, there was a vogue for gland transplantation, especially procedures involving xenotransplants, or non-human tissue.

*** Little has changed since then: testosterone-supplements are STILL an important ingredient in anti-aging quackery.

* Homeopathic remedies claim to work on the principle of [[You Fail Pharmacology Forever|"like cures like"]]. The idea is that an active substance (arsenic, for example) has [[You Fail Physics Forever|"energy"]] that can be transferred to water by shaking a mixture vigorously (but homeopaths say that only they know how to do the proper kind of shaking), and the more times you repeat the mix-and-shake procedure (to the point that you'd be lucky<ref>or, in the case of arsenic, unlucky</ref> to get one molecule of the original substance in a swimming pool) the more powerful the energy gets. And water that's been energized by the arsenic that's been diluted out of it ''cures'' [[Insane Troll Logic|arsenic poisoning and any illness whose symptoms vaguely resemble arsenic poisoning.]]<br /><br />The whole deal sounds even less credible when one is told how this system was "discovered" and developed. It started out with a man having the idea of "fighting fire with fire" with his patients. They came in with say, symptom x, he prescribed them something which is supposed to cause symptom x (usually one poison or another--people don't seek medical aid for benevolent symptoms). He began experimenting with different doses of said poison, to find that the less he prescribed, the faster the person recovered, and so he began diluting his "medication" to a point there was little more then simple water left in it. As a side note, any time a homeopathic fan tells you that it's better than "modern Western medicine", point out that it was invented by a German in the 1800s. It tends to blow their minds.

* Chinese elixirs of immortality tended to include mercury, arsenic, gold, jade, and other minerals. The mound covering the tomb of Qin Shi Huang (the guy with the Terracotta Army) has significantly higher levels of mercury than the surrounding countryside.

** His tomb had a scale model of his empire, with mercury oceans and rivers, since it evaporates slower than water. That more likely caused the high mercury levels, not the elixirs he took during his life.

* While the substance they're shilling (trelahose) probably isn't any more harmful than most sugars, the [http://www.newsweet.com/natural.htm website for artificial sweetener NewSweet] abuses the "Natural is Good, Artificial is Bad" aspect of this trope to the point that the title of their "all natural" page declares that NewSweet ''contains no chemicals''. They reiterate it in the text as well. There doesn't seem to be any indication that it's a parody, so it seems their marketers really did [[You Fail Physics Forever|fail physics forever]].

* In a radio debate, conservative commentator Laura Ingraham argued that abortion and birth control are inherently unhealthy for the woman because they alter her hormone levels, which can have side effects. Jessica Valenti, the feminist she was debating, pointed out that ''pregnancy'' is pretty hard to match for screwing with your hormone levels and has tons of potential complications. Ingraham, clearly appalled, started talking about how pregnancy is beautiful and natural and there can't be any comparison, etc.

*** Omega-3 Fatty Acids are definitely important for your health, the same way vitamins and minerals are. What many studies have failed to find are concrete benefits beyond preventing deficiency, such as claims that it improves cognitive function or prevents heart disease. This is similar to the controversy surrounding megadosing of vitamins, where people claim benefits well beyond what the vitamins have been shown to actually do. That said, some studies have found concrete benefits for Omega-3 supplementation, and the benefits of eating fish a few times a week are not in doubt, it just isn't clear how much of that is due to the Omega-3 Fatty Acids.

*** Omega-3's have only been ''proven'' to be useful when you eat them when they're still in the fish.

* Most beef cattle are "finished" on corn, which is unhealthy for the cow, but fattens them up quickly and cheaply. Completely grass-fed cows fare better and produce higher quality meat, which is why they're the choice for high-end steak houses. However, while "grass fed" has a strict legal definition in the U.S, "finishing" does not. A "grass finished" is still finished on corn, but if some grass is waved in front of it before slaughter, it can still carry the label.

 

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[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:All Natural Snake Oil]]