What is natural? The FDA wants to know

[Colonel Sanders]

Are humans "natural"?

Is what they do "natural"?

I guess the answer to that has to be yes because we don't do anything supernatural, and if we do things to destroy ourselves then it's an extension of what humans naturally do, which is create things, among which is really bad stuff.

 

[bilby]

A food is natural if no tools of any kind were used in its cultivation, harvesting or preparation.

There you go. Clear definition; applies to nothing.

Problem solved.

34 years ago we were going down a road in Africa. Two women were working on their tans up on top of the truck--and started picking mangoes as we went. (The road conditions were horrible, we were moving slowly enough that they could pick on the fly.) These were trees that simply grew over the road, no human hands involved.

I would think those would meet your definition of natural.

So a truck that is used to help to reach the fruit is not a tool used in harvesting? How do you figure that?

 

[Jarhyn]

Or the fact that 'natural' mangos are about a quarter the mass of the ones that humans are responsible for.

 

[thebeave]

34 years ago we were going down a road in Africa. Two women were working on their tans up on top of the truck--and started picking mangoes as we went. (The road conditions were horrible, we were moving slowly enough that they could pick on the fly.) These were trees that simply grew over the road, no human hands involved.

I would think those would meet your definition of natural.

So a truck that is used to help to reach the fruit is not a tool used in harvesting? How do you figure that?

Yep. No trucks allowed. The women themselves need to be completely natural. No dyed hair, no body shaving, no makeup (berry juice around the eyes and lips is OK, but only non-GMO, non-artificially bred berries). No textile based clothes either, just large leaves or animal skins.

 

[Jarhyn]

So a truck that is used to help to reach the fruit is not a tool used in harvesting? How do you figure that?

Yep. No trucks allowed. The women themselves need to be completely natural. No dyed hair, no body shaving, no makeup (berry juice around the eyes and lips is OK, but only non-GMO, non-artificially bred berries). No textile based clothes either, just large leaves or animal skins.

And those animal skins better not be cured or sewn. Just holes cut in the sun dried flesh and then draped over

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So a truck that is used to help to reach the fruit is not a tool used in harvesting? How do you figure that?

Yep. No trucks allowed. The women themselves need to be completely natural. No dyed hair, no body shaving, no makeup (berry juice around the eyes and lips is OK, but only non-GMO, non-artificially bred berries). No textile based clothes either, just large leaves or animal skins.

I didn't think of the truck as the harvesting had nothing to do with the intended and normal use.

Hair dye--certainly not at that point of the trip.

Shaving--I don't know but I doubt it.

Makeup--I doubt it.

This was before the GMO era.

As for their clothing--I know they were topless and they pretty much had to be wearing footgear, beyond that I do not know. (In the unlikely event of meeting another vehicle on the road they could have ducked down. Everyone in our group had already seen them naked multiple times at that point anyway.)

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Yep. No trucks allowed. The women themselves need to be completely natural. No dyed hair, no body shaving, no makeup (berry juice around the eyes and lips is OK, but only non-GMO, non-artificially bred berries). No textile based clothes either, just large leaves or animal skins.

I didn't think of the truck as the harvesting had nothing to do with the intended and normal use.

Hair dye--certainly not at that point of the trip.

Shaving--I don't know but I doubt it.

Makeup--I doubt it.

This was before the GMO era.

As for their clothing--I know they were topless and they pretty much had to be wearing footgear, beyond that I do not know. (In the unlikely event of meeting another vehicle on the road they could have ducked down. Everyone in our group had already seen them naked multiple times at that point anyway.)

Sounds like a corporate marketing strategy to get you to grab the "natural" mangos.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I didn't think of the truck as the harvesting had nothing to do with the intended and normal use.

Hair dye--certainly not at that point of the trip.

Shaving--I don't know but I doubt it.

Makeup--I doubt it.

This was before the GMO era.

As for their clothing--I know they were topless and they pretty much had to be wearing footgear, beyond that I do not know. (In the unlikely event of meeting another vehicle on the road they could have ducked down. Everyone in our group had already seen them naked multiple times at that point anyway.)

Sounds like a corporate marketing strategy to get you to grab the "natural" mangos.

Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

As for the truck--after something like an hour of this and growing more and more puzzled (where they were they could hand things back and forth and it wasn't unusual for them to pass stuff from the drivers to the rest of us, but communication was impossible and it wasn't safe for us to stick our head out to look as the trees were encroaching on the road. These mangoes kept piling up and we couldn't figure out where they were coming from.) when finally the driver stopped at a particularly loaded tree.

At that point most of the group was out gathering mangoes, no truck involved.

 

[Deepak]

Sounds like a corporate marketing strategy to get you to grab the "natural" mangos.

Just make sure she's into you before you grab 'em