The Incredible Arrogance of Thinking ‘Natural’ Means ‘Good’

LiftAllThePizzas

This also goes along with the "it has some usage in an industrial capacity and is therefore bad because of that." For example, if we found a way to use vitamin A as rocket fuel, or engine degreaser, or an antifreeze, or pesticide, etc, it would at that very instant magically become bad for you.

richardheath

You mean the whole world wasn't put here just for me??? :sad:

mmipanda

just depends how you define 'natural'. Naturally-occuring? cool. chemicals vs natural ingredients? bullsheet.


I'm pretty horrified by the way fruit is processed by the supermarket giants, so I buy local. Those shiny red apples? crushed up red beetles - http://www.cracked.com/article_15982_5-horrifying-food-additives-youve-probably-eaten-today.html

beetles are natural! Do I want to eat those apples? Hell no.

lacroyx

Lol, we use chemicals to make our water drinkable. People use chemicals on their face to clean them or enhance them. Same as nails, and skin.
But somehow, not eating "natural" is the demise of why we are an overweight and obese nation along with more diseases. I'd start with over consumption first.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

One of my coworkers at work likes to preach about her all natural diet. I remember a while back she said I was going to die because I needed to eat healthier. I pointed out how much weight I've lost and no longer have a need for the medications I was taking in the past. No longer diabetic, or have high blood pressure and cholesterol and my doctor said everything is looking great in my latest blood work. I then ask her how she is doing and what her doctor says. She shuts up and doesn't say anything. She's also nearly 80-90 lbs overweight, rarely exercises, but still is convinced she is much healthier than I because she eats "all natural".

jen_zz

I think people need to obsess less about these details when they should first focus on less consumption overall.

maillemaker

This is why I always try to put "natural" in quotes when talking about eating "natural" foods.

Everything in this universe is "natural" at it's fundamental level. And has been pointed out, there are many natural things that are not good for you. You wouldn't want to drink a glass of natural arsenic, would you?

But discounting the term "natural" in a fitness sense does a disservice to people trying to lose weight. Because there are definite benefits to eating "natural" (notice the quotes) foods as opposed to processed foods.

The number one benefit, to me, is that "natural" foods are typically less calorie-dense than processed foods. If you eat for pleasure, like I do, and eat until satisfied, as I used to do, and your diet consists mostly of processed foods, you will find it very, every easy to over-consume calories. But if you eat "natural" foods, you will find it harder to do.

What this means is that if you eat a "natural" diet it is easier to stay in your calorie allotment.

Can you over-consume calories eating "natural" foods? Of course you can. Especially if you want to drop some serious coin on uber-tasty "natural" foods like steak, or lobster, or shrimp, etc. But generally speaking, if you cruise through your grocery store's produce isle there isn't much there that is going to make you think, "Man, I'd like to eat all I can of that!" And even if you did eat all you could of many natural foods, you still probably wouldn't be consuming that many calories.

On the other hand, eat as many Doritos or Oreos as you can in a sitting and you can probably come close to your entire daily allotment of calories!

So eating "natural" means you generally get to eat more filling volume and experience the pleasure of eating for longer than if you eat processed foods.

The second big benefit to eating "natural" foods is that generally speaking, they have fewer carbohydrates in them than processed foods. This means they won't cause spikes and crashes in blood sugar that can often lead to feeling hungry soon after eating them. When you are trying to stick to a diet, hunger is usually what saps and breaks willpower. You might crave the taste of something, but if you aren't hungry, you can usually hold it off. But if you get hungry, you may be driven to eat, and then eat anything. So staving off hunger is a huge benefit to staying on a diet.

That's not to say that there are not sugar-loaded natural foods that can spike your blood sugar just like eating a cookie. For example, I put honey in my natural peanut butter. Guess what - that's basically sugar. Fruits also, as you would expect from being sweet, contain fructose.

So a diet of "natural" foods may keep you on a more even keel in terms of appetite control, especially if you eat the ones with natural sugar in them sparingly.

Maybe there is a better word that we can come up for these kinds of foods other than "natural". When I think of "natural" foods, I think of foods with ideally one ingredient. If you killed it to eat it, it's probably "natural", and it's probably better for your diet to eat than something with an ingredient list that reads like a chemistry set.

Acg67

just depends how you define 'natural'. Naturally-occuring? cool. chemicals vs natural ingredients? bullsheet.


I'm pretty horrified by the way fruit is processed by the supermarket giants, so I buy local. Those shiny red apples? crushed up red beetles - http://www.cracked.com/article_15982_5-horrifying-food-additives-youve-probably-eaten-today.html

beetles are natural! Do I want to eat those apples? Hell no.

Do you want to be eating hydrogen peroxide in your local organic apple? Cause you are

maillemaker

I think people need to obsess less about these details when they should first focus on less consumption overall.

Eating "natural" foods generally does this for you automatically. In addition, they generally don't cause spikes in blood sugar that can lead to willpower-sapping feelings of hunger.

For people used to eating to satiety, switching to a "natural" food diet will generally make it easier to still maintain some measure of satiety while eating than otherwise.

WendyTerry420

Well, I guess I am arrogant because I do think the world belongs to its inhabitants. I agree with everything else though.

dbrightwell1270

I've always been baffled by the "it's all natural" pitch and how people can believe it. I knew a girl who used metabolife and would always say, "It's all natural so it's good for you." I'd follow up by asking if mercury, uranium, or lead were good for her too.

SideSteel

In.

ritchiedrama

Everybody's favourite unemployed 24 year old know it all is here, definitely IN.

chezjuan

Maybe there is a better word that we can come up for these kinds of foods other than "natural". When I think of "natural" foods, I think of foods with ideally one ingredient. If you killed it to eat it, it's probably "natural", and it's probably better for your diet to eat than something with an ingredient list that reads like a chemistry set.

How about "whole" instead of "natural" - that sounds like what you are trying to say.

FerretBuellerr

I don't know if I can speak for most of these "arrogant" people you speak of, so this may be generalizing:

I don't think - no, let's make that I HOPE - that supporters of natural/raw/whole/organic/clean diets are not NEARLY as completely uninformed and idiotic as you and many others claim them to be. At all. Whatsoever. It's almost laughable that you and other like-minded individuals are assuming that they are.

It's pretty damn obvious to anyone who has a pulse and has taken and completed high school chemistry that there are naturally occurring elements and chemical compounds that are harmful to humans, and also pretty darn obvious that some "natural" things that were mentioned here are not meant to be eaten. I'm assuming that 99% of the general population is aware of this, and if a person is that thick, then there is a lot more important issues going on with them than wanting to have a diet and lifestyle free of processed foods and non-naturally occurring foods/elements/chemical compounds.

There, now attack away :smokin:

alpha_andy

Loving this (the original post). I'll cross post this on my blog later, which is science driven.

_noob_

I don't know about the "industrial uses making a natural substance sound bad".

Botox has I believe the lowest mammalian LD50 of any substance known (and orders of magnitude smaller than the first manmade chemical on a list of most toxic).

maillemaker

It's pretty damn obvious to anyone who has a pulse and has taken and completed high school chemistry that there are naturally occurring elements and chemical compounds that are harmful to humans, and also pretty darn obvious that some "natural" things that were mentioned here are not meant to be eaten. I'm assuming that 99% of the general population is aware of this, and if a person is that thick, then there is a lot more important issues going on with them than wanting to have a diet and lifestyle free of processed foods and non-naturally occurring foods/elements/chemical compounds.

Exactly.

And it ignores the fact that processed foods are generally cheaper and more calorie-dense than "natural" foods, making them easier to over-consume.

Morn66

Seriously, I think the whole issue comes down to what you consider to be "processed" and what you consider to be "natural." I am, at the moment, sitting here eating sweetened puffed wheat cereal. (AKA Malt-o-Meal Golden Puffs, the bulk analogue of Kellogg's Honey Smacks.) Do I consider this "processed" because the wheat is puffed, sugar is liberally added, and vitamin/mineral fortification is added? Not particularly. It's wheat with sugar and other good (for me) stuff added. Big deal. Do I think white bread is evil because it's "processed?" No. In fact, it's what I eat, when I eat bread (which is rare), because it's lowest in protein, which I have to restrict for medical reasons. On the other hand, I have a few vegan "all natural" frozen meals in my freezer for "emergencies" when I don't have time to cook. Do I consider that "processed?" Yep. I also consider them bad for me because they have a lot of added sodium in them, which I also have to restrict for medical reasons, but if I have time for nothing else I'll eat one. Do I consider a standard grocery store apple "processed" because it has stuff applied to it so that it's shinier and prettier and maybe lasts a little bit longer without going bad? Nope. In fact, I consider the latter to be a good thing. I'm a single person, and to avoid almost-daily grocery store trips I try to buy as much as I can at once in terms of perishables. If the produce lasts longer, I'm a very happy vegan. On the other hand, do I think an "organic" apple is somehow awesomer than a standard one? Nope. Tastes the same to me (and I'm a supertaster), the non-organic one is often but not always crisper, which is what I must have in an apple, and both likely have some amount of non-natural pesticide in them since the stuff's in our water supply and likely can't be entirely avoided.

So, essentially, I think there's a lot of fuss over very little when it comes to this issue. I frankly don't care if it's arrogant to be "natural." I frankly believe that it's a non-issue. When human beings were truly eating an "all-natural" diet, they tended to die young. Granted, that wasn't just diet-related, but I'm honestly not at all interested in going "back to nature," thanks. Give me all your chemicals!

ETA: As to the "calorie denseness" of processed foods...Of course that's true. Doesn't make them "bad," though. It simply means that one should eat less of them than one does less-dense foods. So, if I want some nasty potato chips, I'll have them, but I'm aware that it's a bad thing to eat the whole bag. In other words, it's the calories that matter, not whether or not the item is "processed" or not or "natural" or not or "whole" or not. Yes, simple sugar and some processed foods will spike your blood sugar which can be a bad thing (but is actually a plus for me, personally), but that is not necessarily "bad" for you unless you have blood sugar issues.

halffull_pgh

Natural Harvest

disneygallagirl

marketing at work - misleading information....makes for tougher choices and an increased need to be well informed.....classic "buyer beware".

I love the "fat free" labels on food and when you read the ingredients there is a ton of sugar!!!! not exactly what you first think -oooh fat free should be healthy.