Does Being Natural Make It Good?

Abstract

How many ads try to seduce the buyer with the appeal, "Our product is 100 per cent natural"? The product may be a food, a cosmetic, or even a fabric. Health-food stores prosper because of our love affair with nature. Foods that are grown 100 per cent organically command higher prices than those nurtured by chemical fertilizers and pesticides (as if a plant could care about the source of the appropriate molecule). The back-to-nature movement inspires some women to prefer natural childbirth over birth with professional assistance (sometimes in spite of risk to themselves and their infants). It may underlie . . .