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We need a new adjective. Its definition would be something like:
something humans evolved in the presence of (and therefore are likely to be somewhat adapted to it)
something to differentiate fructose and cosleeping and sunshine from Splenda and cribs and sunscreen. You know?
What do you all think? Can we come up with some suggestions? I'll start with some words that we could borrow syllables/roots from:
adaptive, evolution, advantage, natural, evolve, historic, anthro-, normal, cave-man,...
Margaloo, it might be easier to create this new word if you say more about why we need it. Can you give an example of a sentence that would work better with this new word than without it? Splenda, cribs, and sunscreens are all man-made, while fructose and sunshine are natural, that is true. We adapt to TVs by becoming couch potatoes.
Symbiotic implies a symmetric relationship. Parasitic implies a destructive relationship. The reciprocal of parasitic-- sounds like symbiotic to me. I'm looking for something neutral. The implication is that it is NOT harmful, but it may not be helpful either.
We need it because people go around saying things like "xylitol is natural, it must be safe".
And we need to be able to say "Natural isn't enough, xylitol occurs in birch tree bark. Its unlikely that any significant number of prehistoric humans consumed xylitol on a regular basis. Fructose, however is __________. It occurs in all sorts of fruits all over the world, humans have been consuming it for millenia. That's significant evidence to support the assertion that fructose won't kill you. If I am going to put xylitol in my baby's mouth, I want to see a review of many long-term double-blind placebo-contolled studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals to support it."
But if we had a word to put in that blank spot we wouldn't need to go on and on as I have.
Here are some more relevant words:
modern, prehistoric, contemporary
anxiously awaiting your ideas...
(yes, it did take me an awfully long time to come back and see what anybody had to say about my original post-- that's motherhood for ya. hopefully it won't be so long this time.)
margaloo said: . . .something humans evolved in the presence of (and therefore are likely to be somewhat adapted to it)
. . .
I think that falls into the trap of thinking that those kind of things are good are safe. Arsenic, avalanches, alcohol, and archery may all be natural, but that doesn't mean they are good for us. Natural living may seem better for us, but a life expectancy of 30 years sounds like a problem to me.
The best word I can think of is ancient.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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