One Person's Morality? Another's Choice. Choose Safrole? Beats Pork Fat.

Who labeled sassafras worse than pork fat?

Eat your pork fat and have a good time. But don't touch the root beer.

The cultural choices we make.

Pork fat rules. We hear.

But an educated dose of safrole is out. Who says? What were the real reasons for banning safrole from our root beer, our hospitality teas.





"WARNING
Use of sassafras oil has caused abortion in pregnant women Research in the 1960's showed that safrole, a principal constituent of oil of sassafras, caused liver cancer in mice, and the US Food and Drug Administration outlawed the sale of flavorings (including oil of sassafras) containing it. Today's rootbeer is made with synthetic flavorings or oil of sassafras from which the safrole has been removed. Apparently filè powder does not contain enough safrole to be dangerous, and it is available commercially."

Maybe that knowledge must be kept under wraps.
Why? If it has been used so in history,
Provide information on the brew
So people need not rely on others to act.
A backyard solution for those who seek?
Their business then. Why not now?

Rationale: Maybe an overdose will cause illness.
It made rats sick.
But of course. Rats are averse to it - naturally.
Correlate with people?

Even where overdose is harmful,
Why ban? Why not provide information on the brew?
A plant misunderstood -
Its safrole, sassafras oil, banned by the FDA
But based on 20-day testing on rats.
Please tell the FDA
So it will tailor its testing methods
To the needs and inclinations of the testees.
That rules in everything else, so also here.
Just free the poor rats from sassafras.
They will sicken from sassafras every time.*

Granted, it is a plant with a downside if abused.
Like tobacco, or cough medicines.
It can be more than a pick-me up:
See www.chow.com/stories/10129; "Your Sassafras Has Been Neutered."
Is not the conclusion to regulate it, not ban.

It does take regulation;
Here is how to keep its stands of new shoots at bay:
Head right in and mow once in a while.
Go, Don.
Because the sassafras, like all of us, gets wild.
Huge overdose brings harm, expectedly.

Just set proper dosage and use labels for people,
And release the ban.
If cigarettes are sold with warnings, **
Why not lowly sassafras in root beer, too?
See www.planetherbs.com/articles/Bentley for Notes on Herb Contraindications.

To lift the ban, we need to conform here:
Need lobbyists for sassafras.

Need to promise career enhancements to them,
And look the other way when the FDA people own stock
In the enterprises they regulate, like Pharma,
If the FDA will just lift the ban.
That's how it is done.

Sad part.
Because there is a ban,
And government agencies must be acting
In the public interest, ha (see Sassafras Tree).

And that cup of sassafras is 1/14 as carcinogenic
As cup of beer. The Duke study. Dr. James Duke.

People will believe the ban is justified
Just because it is out there,
And not ask for backup information.
See www.mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2000/02/50. for The Tree With Red Mittens.
The two-lobed leaves in fall look just like that.