Original material:
(From a popular chain email, recently made into a PDF, possibly copyrighted in 2008 by one Ed Bagley and therefore reproduced here under Fair Use for purposes of analysis)
“The next time you sit down to lunch or dinner, you may be surprised to learn that many of the foods that we eat look similar to vital organs in our body, and in fact provide nutrients that actually help the organ in question function. Upon learning the specifics of this interesting fact, you just may ponder about whether this phenomena is a happy coincidence or a planned occurrence.
“Here are the facts: A sliced carrot looks like our human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like our human eye, and science shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to our eyes and the function of our eyes. A tomato has four chambers and is red. Our heart has four chambers and is red. Research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopene—a red carotenoid pigment present in tomatoes and many berries and fruits—and are indeed pure heart and blood food. Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of our heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and research shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food. A walnut looks like a little brain with a left and right hemisphere, similar to our upper cerebrum and lower cerebellum. Even the wrinkles (folds) on the nut are just like our neo-cortex. We know that walnuts help develop more than 30 neurotransmitters for our brain function, allowing a chemical substance to help fibers in our brain communicate with each other.
“Kidney beans look like our human kidneys, and actually heal and help maintain our kidney function. Celery, bok choy and rhubarb look like our bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium (salt) and these foods are 23% sodium. If you do not have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of our body.
“Avocados, eggplant and pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female—they even look like these organs. Research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. It also takes 9 months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are apparently more than 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods; modern science has only studied and named about 141 of these. Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm, increase the number of sperm, and can help overcome male sterility. Sweet potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics. Olives assist the health and function of the female ovaries. Oranges, grapefruits, and other citrus fruits look like the mammary glands of the female, and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.
“Onions look like our body cells. Research shows that onions help clear waste materials from our body cells. As we have found out, onions even produce tears that wash the epithelial (outer) layers of our eyes. A working companion, garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from our body.”
In the case of the PDF, it jumps straight from the last one to Psalms 46:19.
Response:
I’ve unearthed this piece from the remains of the old site as it seems to have been the only visible online response to the “God’s Pharmacy” email.
Immediate issues with the specifics:
– Even the most common variety of tomato has between three and five chambers, not just four. Other breeds have between two and ten.
– You have to cut a carrot to even make one side of it look like a picture of an eye, and even then it’s a creepy orange eye. Once you’re shaping these foods yourself like this, their natural appearance is irrelevant.
– Carotene gives tomatoes and carrots their health benefits and their colour. If God’s trying to draw us to healthy foods by making them red or reddish, why are most poisonous berries the same colour?
– Blood cells aren’t round like grapes, they’re flattened and pitted like a Strepsils tablet.
– The stalks of celery, bok choy and rhubarb can look like the long, thin bones in our arms and legs. That’s just 12 out of the 206 bones of all shapes and sizes in the human body.
– Who decided that garlic is a “working companion” to onions, and how does the appearance of onions link to the benefits of garlic?
What makes me suspicious about these claims, beyond the inaccuracies above, is the recurring non-references to scientific research: “science shows…”, “research shows…”, “we know that…” and so on. No links to any actual work done by anybody. Though much of what’s said is likely correct, we’re expected to believe it from this email alone.
The real problem here is naked confirmation bias. Every one of these foods has a long list of benefits all over the body (the kidney bean, for instance, could sustain you all by itself for ages), and every body part mentioned has a multitude of foods which are good for it and yet look nothing like it. Pick the most interesting twenty out of the innumerable billions of combinations, and you’ve got an amazing list. View it in the context of the whole of the human body and the whole of the fruit and vegetable family, and it’s just an amusing highlight reel.
Coincidences happen, and we notice them. Next to the infinite coincidences that do not happen, and we therefore don’t usually consider, they are often insignificant. That’s the case with “God’s Pharmacy” here.
– SmartLX
“God’s Pharmacy”
Coincidences happen, and we notice them. Next to the infinite coincidences that do not happen, and we therefore don’t usually consider, they are often insignificant.