Does 'natural' mean 'better'?
‘Don’t worry Duncan – the sugar in them is all natural. It’s only the good stuff.’ - announced a friend as he set down a plate of ugly but delicious home-made flapjacks on the garden table where we were having afternoon tea. The fact that, before he could finish the sentence, my mouth was so stuffed with flapjack I wasn’t able to respond was likely enough to ensure him I wasn’t worried. But his statement did make me think…
What was he talking about? ‘All natural sugar?’ What does that mean? ‘The good stuff.’ What?
The truth is this somewhat meaningless statement represented perfectly an issue I come up against over and over again in my work as a Nutritionist - the naturalistic fallacy in nutrition. The idea that things that are natural are inherently good while things that are unnatural are inherently bad.
All-natural C-section!
In the final trimester before the birth of my daughter as I poured over pregnancy, birthing and parenting books I found myself constantly being presented with the most bizarrely named idea – a natural C-section. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it is a C section that is intended to more closely mimic a vaginal birth by allowing a slower and observed delivery that allows for skin to skin content directly after birth.
A fine idea and the appeal is clear - but a more impressive oxymoron I have yet to find. The idea that there is anything natural about the procedure (with its dependence on extraordinary levels of modern technology) is an obvious designed fiction.
The use of the term in this context highlights the manner in which you find it in the context of nutrition. In this way it is intended to induce sentiments of being more wholesome, healthy, honest, real and true – better. This being in opposition to the word unnatural, all too often synonymous with being abnormal, suboptimal – worse.
As Cambridge plant biologist Ottoline Leyser put it, at the heart of the issue is the widespread mistaken belief that "anything natural is good, and anything unnatural is bad."
What does Natural even mean?
The truth is the term natural has no precise definition and can be assigned to all manner of causes or justifications – whether advantageous, benign or detrimental. In this way it is utilised as a mercenary ethic that can be hired by anyone wishing to use it for their own purposes.
It can be used as a mechanism for denying scientific research or refusing potentially life-saving medical procedures (eg blood transfusions). These interventions being considered unnatural, and therefore – according to this definition - bad.
In this vein a naturopath will prescribe all manner of natural remedies, entirely unproven to have any real-world efficacy. But at least they will spare you from those unnatural prescribed medications, proven to actually reduce symptoms and treat disease.
It seems it is naturalness, not cleanliness, that is most close to godliness.
Natural in Nutrition
In the world of nutrition the term is used to suggest a sense of connection to the earth. Often intended to evoke a feeling of the food being sourced from a not so distant utopian Eden - far removed from our unnatural, polluted, modern world so very disconnected from nature.
This deception permeates many aspects of the food consumption chain but is most prominent in advertising and marketing. A box of mass-produced, laboratory tested cereal will display a picture of a wholesome small farm on the box that bears no resemblance to the industrial agricultural juggernaut that brought it to your supermarket shelf.
The popular paleo diet has its entire basis in this fallacy. Tricking adherents into believing that their strong, earthy, natural ancestors lived long, healthy, disease free lives while chowing down on ‘natural’ protein bars.
As Professor Leyser notes in her 2014 essay - "The cereal crops we eat bear little resemblance to their naturally selected ancestors, and the environments in which we grow them are equally highly manipulated and engineered by us…We have, over the last 10,000 years, bred out of our main food plants all kinds of survival strategies that natural selection put in.”
Legal Definition
Very few countries legally define the term ‘natural’ and regulate its use.
EU legislation provides for the use of the term ‘natural’ in two cases.
1 - Natural mineral waters are defined in Directive 2009/54/EC and
2 – Natural flavourings Regulation (EC) 1334/2008 lays down the condition for the use of the description ‘natural’ for flavourings.
In all other cases for foods and beverages it is not clearly defined what constitutes ‘natural’ beyond the general food law stipulating that the labelling, advertising and presentation of food shall not mislead consumers.
The UK guidelines stipulate that a natural “product is comprised of natural ingredients, e.g. ingredients produced by nature, not the work of man or interfered with by man. It is misleading to use the term to describe foods or ingredients that employ chemicals to change their composition or comprise the products of new technologies, including additives and flavourings that are the product of the chemical industry or extracted by chemical processes”. (One can already notice the confusion of using the term natural to define the term natural)
The USDA defines natural as “A product containing no artificial ingredient or added color and is only minimally processed. Minimal processing means that the product was processed in a manner that does not fundamentally alter the product.”
These vague definitions lend themselves to a massive scope of interpretation that I would argue – although not inherently dishonest - mislead consumers into thinking they are getting a product that they are in fact not paying for.
Extraordinarily vague yet surprisingly convincing
It seems that, even though we don’t know what the term means, we are willing to pay a premium for it. In one study half of the sample consumers were provided with the current USDA definition of ‘natural’ and half were not. The absence of the definition resulted in consumers placing a premium on steak labelled ‘natural’, with those informed with the definition unwilling to do the same. These results led researchers to conclude that consumers are likely to misinterpret the label of natural, often imbuing it with the meaning most relevant to themselves.
Further polls and studies paint a similar picture. A Consumer Reports survey found 59 percent of shoppers look for a "natural" label when shopping for food, assuming it means the product will be healthier or better for them. This is despite being unable to define the term.
The food industry is entirely aware of this reality, and as a consequence the term is predicted to sell around US$40-50billion annually in the US alone (approximately US$40-50 billion more than the term unnatural).
The curious case of vanilla
The all-natural food movement has convinced us to pay a premium for the world’s most commonly used flavouring, vanilla. Convinced that artificial vanilla flavouring is bad for us we turn to the natural process of artificially inseminated vanilla pods grown in giant, climate-controlled warehouses (see picture). These structures are incredible monuments to the power of human technology and innovation (especially when the result is profit) – but natural, I think not.
(for more on this I highly recommend ‘Natural’ by Alan Levinovitz)
A few years ago McDonalds recognised this and as a consequence announced it will be making its soft serve ice-cream more healthy by switching from artificial to natural vanilla flavouring. We bought into it, despite the fact that they increased the saturated fat and calorie content in the process. Healthier? Really?
Some truth in the lie
Like all good myths there is some truth to the idea that natural can be (at least sometimes) better. As mentioned above there is some benefit to switching from high fructose corn syrup to cane sugar or honey. Not in terms of calorie count or weight management, but as a means of potentially reducing inflammatory response in the body.
Likewise with the paleo diet. It is true that the idea that our cave dwelling ancestors spent their days eating juicy rib-eye steaks and plump & seedless bananas is fundamentally false. But if someone switches from a standard western diet to foods that are deemed paleo worthy they will likely see improvements to their overall health. Further, it is true that, as a general rule, avoiding highly processed (and therefore unnatural) foods is a good idea for optimal health and longevity.
But we must recognise that the benefits in these (and other) cases are not due to the naturalness of these foods, but due to some other fundamental quality. After all Clostridium botulinum bacteria is perfectly natural. As are arsenic, ricin and tobacco. Drowning in a body of water is perfectly natural, but that doesn’t stop us from erecting fences around our swimming pools.
As my colleague, the straight talking Jenevora Williams, said to me: “Crude oil is perfectly natural. But I wouldn’t want to drink a whole glass of it.”
If something being natural inherently made it better the concept would be somewhat consistent. It clearly is not.
The Future – Lab-grown/cultured meat
Due to the demand for meat, and potential environmental/ethical issues associated, there is a push for the development of cultured meat. Cultured meat is harvested from the muscle cells of a living organism and presents an opportunity for consumption of meat products without the environmental/ethical concerns.
Currently, the ability to produce cultured meat is stunted by cost and a lack of technology. Initial data also suggest there may be a significant disgust factor associated with the consumption of cultured meats, with many individuals expressing a distaste for the process that would prevent consumption. In many people this reluctance stems from a perception of the process being unnatural.
In my opinion this demonstrates the very negative side of the naturalistic fallacy. Cultured meat potentially represents an opportunity for people to consume a culturally, culinarily and nutritionally significant commodity (meat) without the overwhelming ethical and environmental concerns currently attached. Further, with increasing technological capabilities, cultured meat may be produced at a fraction of the cost of meat produced through industrial agriculture.
If the deification of naturalness presents an obstruction to this elegant and very possible solution it can only be seen as an unnecessary, self-imposed and invisible barrier that we must inevitably cross. The same arguments holds for genetically modified foods. As Professor Leyser put it - “The imperative is not that we should stop interfering with nature, but that we should interfere in the best way possible to provide a reliable, sustainable, equitable supply of nutritious food."
Value evidence above all
The way we distinguish between what is more or less healthy in a nutritional context is through evidence. This is how we distinguish that perfectly natural arsenic is bad for our health while perfectly natural broccoli is good for our health. The inherent naturalness of a product tells us nothing about its intrinsic qualities at a fundamental level – despite what advertising and marketing will have you believe.
Feed the life you want to lead,
Duncan