What’s Really in Your ‘All-Natural’ Fruit?

One of my old chemistry teachers once said, “There are chemicals in everything, because everything is made of chemicals.”

That’s true, but here in America, lots of people and organizations have spent time and money making the word “chemicals” synonymous with “artificial chemicals” — then painting those chemicals as all bad, all the time. This despite the fact that even the most so-called “all-natural” products not only contain chemicals, they are made of chemicals.

Enter Australian chemistry teacher James Kennedy, who put together some poster graphics that list the chemical ingredients found in an egg, a banana and a blueberry. Kennedy explained to website IO9:

“I want to erode the fear that many people have of ‘chemicals’, and demonstrate that nature evolves compounds, mechanisms and structures far more complicated and unpredictable than anything we can produce in the lab.

“This poster series breaks down all the major ingredients in popular natural foods — using E-numbers and IUPAC names instead of common names where they exist. Anthocynanins, for example, which are said to give blueberries their “superfood” status, are also known as E163.

“With these graphics, I wanted to show that chemistry is everywhere.”

Somewhere, Walter White is smiling.