Is Hogwash Natural?

In the game of craps, if you roll a 7 or an 11, that’s called a natural. No gray areas there: a “natural” is a win. Pick up your money.

In the game of selling food, however, the definition of “natural” isn’t nearly as straightforward as rolling a lucky 7.

Nature enhanced

You and I know what natural is. A thing is natural when it hasn’t been modified. Simple. You grow a tomato in your backyard – no fertilizer, no pesticide – you get a natural tomato. But if you buy a can of tomato soup that has flavoring added, maybe a preservative thrown in, a little color enhancement – sorry, that’s not natural.

And yet, there are those who just can’t figure out what natural is, mostly because they put unnatural constraints on what they WANT the word to mean.

A recent Associated Press article notes that the FDA allows the word “natural” to be used when a food item contains no added flavors, colors, or synthetic material. The USDA has similar guidelines, and allows “natural” to be used on packaging for poultry and meat that’s received only a minimum of processing.

But a “minimum of processing” to you and me is not necessarily the same as it is to a government bureaucrat who may be feeling intense pressure from representatives of various food industries.

For instance, the USDA recently ruled that it’s not “natural” to add sodium lactate to meat as a preservative, but it IS natural to add that chemical to meat as a flavor enhancer. Which begs the question: What’s up with THAT?

The web site sodium-lactate.com describes the chemical as a, “natural salt that is derived from a natural fermentation product.” Okay we get it! It’s natural! But if you add a “natural” chemical to a meat product to boost its flavor, that’s an extra processing step that changes the meat. So, call it whatever you want – is it really natural?

Sweet machine

The “natural” controversy doesn’t get really fun until you start talking about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

As you might suspect, the Corn Refiners Association considers HFCS to be as natural as a dewdrop on the first green leaf of spring. But the Sugar Association (which represents an industry that’s losing ground daily to the growing widespread use of HFCS) doesn’t regard the alternate sweetener as anything close to natural.

The AP reports that the Sugar Association petitioned the FDA last year for a more precise definition of natural. The petition noted that allowing HFCS to be called natural was “exceedingly misleading.” And that’s absolutely true.

In the e-Alert “Just Ain’t Natural” (5/25/06), I included this statement, issued by the Center for Science in the Public Interest: “High-fructose corn syrup isn’t something you could cook up from a bushel of corn in your kitchen, unless you happen to be equipped with centrifuges, hydroclones, ion-exchange columns and buckets of enzymes.”

Okay, but is sugar natural?

Sure it is – when it’s in the cane.

In a previous e-Alert, HSI Panelist Allan Spreen, M.D., explained that when sugar cane is chewed, the body isn’t stressed because along with sugar the cane delivers water, fiber, and nutrients. But when cane is processed into “pure, concentrated, naked-calorie refined sugar” (Dr. Spreen’s description), all the nutrients necessary for assimilation are missing, prompting the body to use nutrient stores that ideally should be available for other important tasks.

Bed of spinach

Where in this howling Tower of Babel can we find a true definition of “natural”?

On a hunch, I went to the web site for the American Museum of Natural History – they’ve got to have the inside scoop on what’s natural, right? I typed the word “natural” in the search box, but that just turned up thousands of hits containing the museum’s title. So I tried the word “food” and found this description of dishes served in the museum’s Caf On One: “Menu selections include a roasted beet and goat cheese salad with hazelnuts served on a bed of arugula, house-smoked salmon salad with shaved fennel and fingerling potatoes served on a bed of spinach, and basil-grilled chicken sandwich with roasted red peppers and provolone served on a focaccia roll.”

Okay, that’s not really a workable definition of “natural,” but with giant food conglomerates squabbling over their profit-driven concepts of “natural,” this will have to do for now (provided, of course, the chicken is flavor-enhanced but not preserved with sodium lactate).

Source:
“Battle Over ‘Natural’ Food Designation” Andrew Bridges, Associated Press, 11/7/07, ap.org