This cartoon by Edith Pritchett in the Washington Post asks "How Many Chemicals Are In Your Food?" on a scale from "A Little" to "A Lot." I wouldn't normally pick on a fellow cartoonist, but one venturing into science shouldn't be so smug about being wrong.
ALL food is chemicals. I'm hard pressed to think of anything edible that isn't a chemical. An organically grown apple picked fresh off a tree contains the chemicals water, fructose, and sucrose.
"Yeah, but you know what she means!" I do. But this cartoon reminds me of the stupid advice that you should never eat anything you can't pronounce, followed by a long list of scary-sounding chemicals. That organic apple has quercetin, catechin, epicatechin, and chlorogenic acid--natural antioxidants that are all good for you.
To answer the cartoon's question: Your food is pretty much 100% chemicals. And so are you.
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