Haile Thomas, age 10 cooks all natural foods. Photo by E. Thomas
from Food-Navigator.com
March 26 2012
It’s really not a minefield if you understand the true meaning of natural—made from nature without interference or manipulation by man. Genetically modified foods are obviously not natural. Cattle and chickens fattened up with corn and other grains are not natural because this is not how these creatures evolved to eat.
Breakfast cereal is never natural because by definition it is made from highly processed ingredients. Sugar is not natural because humans didn’t consume any sugar until it was slowly introduced into our diet about 8,000 years ago, a microsecond in our evolutionary history. If you get your sugar from chewing on sugarcane I suppose we could call it natural but I doubt this is the case. Sugar is made up of equal parts fructose and glucose and if you exceed more than 25 grams of fructose consumption per day, your liver starts filling up with fat and you develop insulin resistance and central obesity. This is definitely not a natural process.
You need to go back farther than Grandmothers kitchen to find natural food. My Grandmother loved to bake cookies and pies and she died of obesity, diabetes and dementia in her sixties. Her daughter (my mother) didn’t care so much for baking and I grew up eating real food. She’s still alive and doing well at 94.
I suggest spending more time finding ways to get truly natural, wholesome foods to our tables rather than on splitting hairs on whether manufactured food is truly natural.