These words have come to leave bad feeling for many people, whereas natural and organic leave good feelings. Let's talk for a while about these words. A chemical element is any substance that cannot be separated into different substances except by radioactive decay. All matter is composed of such substances. Matter can not be created nor destroyed but may change its form, such as occurs in a chemical process.
Chemical process can occur within living organisms or from nonliving sources.
In the early 1700s, it was believed that chemical synthesis could occur only in living organisms and organic compounds were defined as coming from living organisms, whereas inorganic compounds come from nonliving sources. However, today, we know that chemical synthesis can occur outside of living organisms. Organic compounds are the compounds made up of the chemical element carbon. Inorganic compounds do not contain carbon. Inorganic chemicals include sulfur, oxygen, nitrogen, silver, copper, etc.