What is natural? The FDA wants to know

[Colonel Sanders]

I buy protein powder to put in my coffee. And I buy the purest forms, not because of any additive issues, but because like the kind I have now, which is almost pure whey protein, are almost tasteless and dissolve easily in liquids. But why do other people buy it? The overarching theme when it comes to opinions is, "If I can't pronounce the words on the ingredients label then it shouldn't go in my body!"

Seriously.

Verbatim review of protein powder on Amazon:

Trying to eat clean and organic as much as possible I had to ask my self why I was paying premium dollars for a protein that was so full of chemicals??? If I can't pronounce it, why is it in my protein?

It almost makes me embarrassed to claim ownership of the same product this guy does.

And the anti-preservative crowd. Christ. When I took microbiology I learned that preservatives are in the top 7 preventers of infectious disease. That is, of all the things that prevent infectious disease, food preservatives are in the top seven. That's up there with antibiotics. It obviously makes food safer, causes it to last longer, and therefore also makes food inestimably cheaper. If there were no preservatives in food, imagine how often we'd have to go to the store and how expensive it would be because stores would have to throw out a huge percentage of stock on a daily basis.

I still struggle trying to reconcile "organic" in its scientific meaning with the one thrown around by people who think it equates to "good for ya'."

 

[Axulus]

Could be simple, does the ingredient occur naturally in nature? The benefit may be dubious, but I think that is a reasonable threshold that is reproducible. Of course, this probably gets problematic when dealing with meat.

I say that there IS no coherent concept of what constitutes 'natural' beyond that which isnt 'supernatural'. Where do we draw the line? An hour of human modification with intent? A year? Ten thousand years? Five minutes per batch? How much of history of human mucking about do we grandfather in? Does it then become (modern science) vs (conservative fears)?

Well we saw how the fear of saturated fats led to the creation of even worse trans-fats. There is notable history for caution.

It's essentially the creation of a filter using one of the most powerful and insidious fallacies known to man.

I thought that was the word "organic".

Virtually none of the food we grow occurred "naturally" in nature.

Does corn occur in nature? Yes. Does maltodextrin? No.

Corn as we know it never occured in nature without the intervention of humans over thousands of years.

This is the "natural" version of corn:

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Could be simple, does the ingredient occur naturally in nature? The benefit may be dubious, but I think that is a reasonable threshold that is reproducible. Of course, this probably gets problematic when dealing with meat.

I say that there IS no coherent concept of what constitutes 'natural' beyond that which isnt 'supernatural'. Where do we draw the line? An hour of human modification with intent? A year? Ten thousand years? Five minutes per batch? How much of history of human mucking about do we grandfather in? Does it then become (modern science) vs (conservative fears)?

Well we saw how the fear of saturated fats led to the creation of even worse trans-fats. There is notable history for caution.

It's essentially the creation of a filter using one of the most powerful and insidious fallacies known to man.

I thought that was the word "organic".

Virtually none of the food we grow occurred "naturally" in nature.

Does corn occur in nature? Yes. Does maltodextrin? No.

Corn as we know it never occured in nature without the intervention of humans over thousands of years.

This is the "natural" version of corn:

So are we trying for the Triangle Award here?

Show me the maltodextrin plant.

Better reservations would be about products like high fructose corn syrup and soy milk.

 

[dismal]

This implies that you have some concept of natural/artificial that isn't just so much arbitrary bullshit.

Could be simple, does the ingredient occur naturally in nature?

So, like, cheese does not occur in nature so it's unnatural. Well, maybe toe cheese.

 

[dismal]

Show me the maltodextrin plant.

There's your picture of maltodextrin:



Look at all those fresh naturally occurring ingredients. Nothing but Cs, Hs, and Os.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Could be simple, does the ingredient occur naturally in nature?

So, like, cheese does not occur in nature so it's unnatural. Well, maybe toe cheese.

What part of the cheese making process isn't quite natural in nature? The mixture is aged.

 

[Deepak]

So, like, cheese does not occur in nature so it's unnatural. Well, maybe toe cheese.

What part of the cheese making process isn't quite natural in nature? The mixture is aged.

By that token, what's so unnatural about maltodextrin? Starch occurs naturally and hydrolosis is a critical function of living things.

 

[dismal]

So, like, cheese does not occur in nature so it's unnatural. Well, maybe toe cheese.

What part of the cheese making process isn't quite natural in nature? The mixture is aged.

Do you have some pictures of naturally occurring cheese?

Maybe some nice smoked gouda.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What part of the cheese making process isn't quite natural in nature? The mixture is aged.

Do you have some pictures of naturally occurring cheese?

Maybe some nice smoked gouda.

Jesus man. You are 180 degrees.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Heinz ketchup up until recently had "a natural source of lycopene" on their label. I was always like wtf?

Now they've changed the wording to say that tomatoes are a natural source of lycopene and you will get these antioxidants from Heinz tomato products.

I think that is an improvement.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Sometimes natural is better and sometimes it's worse. It totally depends on the particular situation and things being compared. That doesn't imply that we shouldn't know when something is natural or what the food industry means by it.

This implies that you have some concept of natural/artificial that isn't just so much arbitrary bullshit.

It also, as has been pointed out, opens food markets to bias via the naturalistic fallacy.

I say that there IS no coherent concept of what constitutes 'natural' beyond that which isnt 'supernatural'. Where do we draw the line? An hour of human modification with intent? A year? Ten thousand years? Five minutes per batch? How much of history of human mucking about do we grandfather in? Does it then become (modern science) vs (conservative fears)?

It's essentially the creation of a filter using one of the most powerful and insidious fallacies known to man.

1. Discussion of this fallacy in this forum is a straw man, though. No one here thinks natural is always better.

2. The issue isn't about consumers but instead what the food industry is allowed to spout thereby fooling the general public or informing them. See my previous post. If Heinz ketchup can say that Heinz ketchup is a natural source of lycopene, then it's really making nothing of the word "natural." Likewise, some of the alternative medicines probably do the same thing.

Here is another example:

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is another natural way of healing grave diseases. Homeopathy remedies alleviates in reducing the symptoms of grave diseases. But these medicines should be taken with consideration to natural health practitioners. Complete healing may occur over an extended period of time. Homeopathy medicines works well in reducing grave diseases and anxiety.

Should confidence men be able to sell their pill bottles and elixirs with labels containing the word "natural" in misleading ways?

Homeopathy is not a "natural" way to cure graves disease. Taking arsenic to treat graves disease with the help of a homeopathic con man is not natural.

Nope.

 

[whichphilosophy]

In essence the FDA will still advise what is natural after recent evaluation.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-evaluates-labels-healthy-natural-foods/story?id=39007307

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will now allow KIND Healthy Snacks to label its products as “healthy and tasty,” revising a former decision that the company's snacks did not meet the criteria for a “healthy” food.

The FDA announced today that it will allow KIND to label its products as “healthy” in a way that is “clearly presented as its corporate philosophy,” but “isn’t represented as a nutrient content claim,” FDA spokeswoman Lauren Kotwicki told ABC News in a statement. In other words, “healthy” is allowed to be on the KIND wrapper if it’s part of an overall company philosophy, but not part of the Nutrition Facts.

The FDA has strict guidelines about what can be labeled “healthy” in terms of nutrient content. Currently, the definition involves falling below a certain threshold of total fat, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol, while containing a particular amount of “beneficial nutrients

- - - Updated - - -

This implies that you have some concept of natural/artificial that isn't just so much arbitrary bullshit.

It also, as has been pointed out, opens food markets to bias via the naturalistic fallacy.

I say that there IS no coherent concept of what constitutes 'natural' beyond that which isnt 'supernatural'. Where do we draw the line? An hour of human modification with intent? A year? Ten thousand years? Five minutes per batch? How much of history of human mucking about do we grandfather in? Does it then become (modern science) vs (conservative fears)?

It's essentially the creation of a filter using one of the most powerful and insidious fallacies known to man.

1. Discussion of this fallacy in this forum is a straw man, though. No one here thinks natural is always better.

2. The issue isn't about consumers but instead what the food industry is allowed to spout thereby fooling the general public or informing them. See my previous post. If Heinz ketchup can say that Heinz ketchup is a natural source of lycopene, then it's really making nothing of the word "natural." Likewise, some of the alternative medicines probably do the same thing.

Here is another example:

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is another natural way of healing grave diseases. Homeopathy remedies alleviates in reducing the symptoms of grave diseases. But these medicines should be taken with consideration to natural health practitioners. Complete healing may occur over an extended period of time. Homeopathy medicines works well in reducing grave diseases and anxiety.

Should confidence men be able to sell their pill bottles and elixirs with labels containing the word "natural" in misleading ways?

Homeopathy is not a "natural" way to cure graves disease. Taking arsenic to treat graves disease with the help of a homeopathic con man is not natural.

Nope.

If medicine contains virtually nothing then it cannot contain anything unnatural.

 

[bilby]

Could be simple, does the ingredient occur naturally in nature? The benefit may be dubious, but I think that is a reasonable threshold that is reproducible. Of course, this probably gets problematic when dealing with meat.

I say that there IS no coherent concept of what constitutes 'natural' beyond that which isnt 'supernatural'. Where do we draw the line? An hour of human modification with intent? A year? Ten thousand years? Five minutes per batch? How much of history of human mucking about do we grandfather in? Does it then become (modern science) vs (conservative fears)?

Well we saw how the fear of saturated fats led to the creation of even worse trans-fats. There is notable history for caution.

It's essentially the creation of a filter using one of the most powerful and insidious fallacies known to man.

I thought that was the word "organic".

Virtually none of the food we grow occurred "naturally" in nature.

Does corn occur in nature? Yes. Does maltodextrin? No.

Totally wrong on both counts.

Corn, as we see it today, and as has already been pointed out, does NOT occur in nature. It is the result of hundreds of years of artificial selection by humans.

Maltodextrin most certainly does occur in nature - albeit mixed up with loads of other chemicals. True, we don't find piles of pure maltodextrin just lying around; but it certainly does occur in nature - all we do to get a jar of clean, white maltodextrin crystals is clean away all the other stuff that occurs alongside it. Of course, these days we extract our maltodetrin from artificial plants, such as corn; But identical chemicals are identical regardless of their source. There is no difference of any kind between the maltodextrin in modern, artificial, corn; and the maltodextrin in corn's ancient natural ancestor - although there is rather more of it in the modern varieties of corn.

And it is this complete failure of the word 'natural' to mean what the people who use it seem to think it means that renders its use misleading at best. The word should simply not be used to refer to food, almost none of which is natural at all.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I always thought that the word 'natural' in this context means 'overpriced'.

Yeah.

I think I see a reasonable definition of "natural", though--everything in it can be identified by it's common food name or a process applied to that food which must be spelled out. (For example, orange juice concentrate, dried apple etc.) I think the "natural" food guys would freak at this, though. (For example, it would be impossible to have decaffeinated coffee that meets this rule. While there is a solvent that occurs in nature that can do the job it doesn't have a food name.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I buy protein powder to put in my coffee. And I buy the purest forms, not because of any additive issues, but because like the kind I have now, which is almost pure whey protein, are almost tasteless and dissolve easily in liquids. But why do other people buy it? The overarching theme when it comes to opinions is, "If I can't pronounce the words on the ingredients label then it shouldn't go in my body!"

Seriously.

Verbatim review of protein powder on Amazon:

Trying to eat clean and organic as much as possible I had to ask my self why I was paying premium dollars for a protein that was so full of chemicals??? If I can't pronounce it, why is it in my protein?

It almost makes me embarrassed to claim ownership of the same product this guy does.

And the anti-preservative crowd. Christ. When I took microbiology I learned that preservatives are in the top 7 preventers of infectious disease. That is, of all the things that prevent infectious disease, food preservatives are in the top seven. That's up there with antibiotics. It obviously makes food safer, causes it to last longer, and therefore also makes food inestimably cheaper. If there were no preservatives in food, imagine how often we'd have to go to the store and how expensive it would be because stores would have to throw out a huge percentage of stock on a daily basis.

I still struggle trying to reconcile "organic" in its scientific meaning with the one thrown around by people who think it equates to "good for ya'."

I wonder if they can pronounce the amino acids that comprise their protein?

 

[bilby]

I always thought that the word 'natural' in this context means 'overpriced'.

Yeah.

I think I see a reasonable definition of "natural", though--everything in it can be identified by it's common food name or a process applied to that food which must be spelled out. (For example, orange juice concentrate, dried apple etc.) I think the "natural" food guys would freak at this, though. (For example, it would be impossible to have decaffeinated coffee that meets this rule. While there is a solvent that occurs in nature that can do the job it doesn't have a food name.)

That founders on your definition of 'common food name' though. 'Decaf' is a common food name for decaffeinated coffee; so is 'decaf' now natural?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Maltodextrin most certainly does occur in nature - albeit mixed up with loads of other chemicals. True, we don't find piles of pure maltodextrin just lying around; but it certainly does occur in nature - all we do to get a jar of clean, white maltodextrin crystals is clean away all the other stuff that occurs alongside it. Of course, these days we extract our maltodetrin from artificial plants, such as corn; But identical chemicals are identical regardless of their source. There is no difference of any kind between the maltodextrin in modern, artificial, corn; and the maltodextrin in corn's ancient natural ancestor - although there is rather more of it in the modern varieties of corn.

Wikipedia disagrees with you. While it doesn't say if there is any of it in nature it says it's normally produced by via hydrolysis of starch, not simply extracted.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah.

I think I see a reasonable definition of "natural", though--everything in it can be identified by it's common food name or a process applied to that food which must be spelled out. (For example, orange juice concentrate, dried apple etc.) I think the "natural" food guys would freak at this, though. (For example, it would be impossible to have decaffeinated coffee that meets this rule. While there is a solvent that occurs in nature that can do the job it doesn't have a food name.)

That founders on your definition of 'common food name' though. 'Decaf' is a common food name for decaffeinated coffee; so is 'decaf' now natural?

No, because you can't go harvest "decaf coffee".

 

[bilby]

Maltodextrin most certainly does occur in nature - albeit mixed up with loads of other chemicals. True, we don't find piles of pure maltodextrin just lying around; but it certainly does occur in nature - all we do to get a jar of clean, white maltodextrin crystals is clean away all the other stuff that occurs alongside it. Of course, these days we extract our maltodetrin from artificial plants, such as corn; But identical chemicals are identical regardless of their source. There is no difference of any kind between the maltodextrin in modern, artificial, corn; and the maltodextrin in corn's ancient natural ancestor - although there is rather more of it in the modern varieties of corn.

Wikipedia disagrees with you. While it doesn't say if there is any of it in nature it says it's normally produced by via hydrolysis of starch, not simply extracted.

Hydrolysis of starch is a completely natural process. It happens all the time in nature.

Reproducing that process in vitrio doesn't generate a different end-product to the in vivo operation of the exact same process.

That's the whole problem with 'natural' food - even if you can define what it means, it is meaningless as a means to differentiate between two end products. Refusing to eat food that's not 'natural' is as sensible as refusing to drink water that was generated by burning Hydrogen, rather than distilling it from sea water.

The job of the FDA is to ensure that consumers know when two products are materially different, in ways that could affect the people who consume them. Labels such as 'natural', 'organic' or 'non-GMO' do NOT achieve that objective, and should simply not be used at all.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

In essence the FDA will still advise what is natural after recent evaluation.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-evaluates-labels-healthy-natural-foods/story?id=39007307

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will now allow KIND Healthy Snacks to label its products as “healthy and tasty,” revising a former decision that the company's snacks did not meet the criteria for a “healthy” food.

The FDA announced today that it will allow KIND to label its products as “healthy” in a way that is “clearly presented as its corporate philosophy,” but “isn’t represented as a nutrient content claim,” FDA spokeswoman Lauren Kotwicki told ABC News in a statement. In other words, “healthy” is allowed to be on the KIND wrapper if it’s part of an overall company philosophy, but not part of the Nutrition Facts.

The FDA has strict guidelines about what can be labeled “healthy” in terms of nutrient content. Currently, the definition involves falling below a certain threshold of total fat, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol, while containing a particular amount of “beneficial nutrients

- - - Updated - - -

1. Discussion of this fallacy in this forum is a straw man, though. No one here thinks natural is always better.

2. The issue isn't about consumers but instead what the food industry is allowed to spout thereby fooling the general public or informing them. See my previous post. If Heinz ketchup can say that Heinz ketchup is a natural source of lycopene, then it's really making nothing of the word "natural." Likewise, some of the alternative medicines probably do the same thing.

Here is another example:

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is another natural way of healing grave diseases. Homeopathy remedies alleviates in reducing the symptoms of grave diseases. But these medicines should be taken with consideration to natural health practitioners. Complete healing may occur over an extended period of time. Homeopathy medicines works well in reducing grave diseases and anxiety.

Should confidence men be able to sell their pill bottles and elixirs with labels containing the word "natural" in misleading ways?

Homeopathy is not a "natural" way to cure graves disease. Taking arsenic to treat graves disease with the help of a homeopathic con man is not natural.

Nope.

If medicine contains virtually nothing then it cannot contain anything unnatural.

"Virtual" reality and reality are two different things.

 

[Jarhyn]

In essence the FDA will still advise what is natural after recent evaluation.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-evaluates-labels-healthy-natural-foods/story?id=39007307

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will now allow KIND Healthy Snacks to label its products as “healthy and tasty,” revising a former decision that the company's snacks did not meet the criteria for a “healthy” food.

The FDA announced today that it will allow KIND to label its products as “healthy” in a way that is “clearly presented as its corporate philosophy,” but “isn’t represented as a nutrient content claim,” FDA spokeswoman Lauren Kotwicki told ABC News in a statement. In other words, “healthy” is allowed to be on the KIND wrapper if it’s part of an overall company philosophy, but not part of the Nutrition Facts.

The FDA has strict guidelines about what can be labeled “healthy” in terms of nutrient content. Currently, the definition involves falling below a certain threshold of total fat, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol, while containing a particular amount of “beneficial nutrients

- - - Updated - - -

1. Discussion of this fallacy in this forum is a straw man, though. No one here thinks natural is always better.

2. The issue isn't about consumers but instead what the food industry is allowed to spout thereby fooling the general public or informing them. See my previous post. If Heinz ketchup can say that Heinz ketchup is a natural source of lycopene, then it's really making nothing of the word "natural." Likewise, some of the alternative medicines probably do the same thing.

Here is another example:

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is another natural way of healing grave diseases. Homeopathy remedies alleviates in reducing the symptoms of grave diseases. But these medicines should be taken with consideration to natural health practitioners. Complete healing may occur over an extended period of time. Homeopathy medicines works well in reducing grave diseases and anxiety.

Should confidence men be able to sell their pill bottles and elixirs with labels containing the word "natural" in misleading ways?

Homeopathy is not a "natural" way to cure graves disease. Taking arsenic to treat graves disease with the help of a homeopathic con man is not natural.

Nope.

If medicine contains virtually nothing then it cannot contain anything unnatural.

"Virtual" reality and reality are two different things.

Not to mention that the claims of the product do not meet the definition of 'natural' per the OP. The product undergoesna process to give it qualities not verifiable within the observable universe (modifying the memories of the dilutant), and so counts in the greater sense as 'prayed upon'.