By Tom Scott, Ottawa Citizen Letter to the Editor, January 14, 2017
Beet juice not good for butterflies and bees
It is too bad that the Citizen posted an article on beet extract under a science label, because there is no science there at all. The precautionary principle denotes a duty of care for the environment and for public health to prevent harm even when all the evidence is not available. It does not say take a chance and see what happens.
Beet extract from Iowa is treated as an industrial product at the border, not a food product. It is not subject to the same controls and testing as would be, say, a tanker-load of a potentially toxic plastics stabilizer being sent to a Canadian manufacturer.
http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/letters/todays-letters-do-corporations-spoil-vimy-memorial