When you shop at the grocery store, do you look for the natural eggs? Or do you prefer the fake ones? Do you buy natural lettuce? Or the looks-like-lettuce-but-isn’t lettuce? What about your cosmetics? Do you choose natural soap? Or pretend soap? Natural makeup? Or the synthetic stuff? And what would you say about your shoes? Natural or non-natural? What about your plants? Your carpet? Your couch? Seriously though… There are natural claims everywhere you look! But what makes something natural? What does the word even mean?
Well… I don’t want to give it all away, but… (pause for effect) … I’m not sure. Nope. I really don’t know. I just think it’s a good question. Because if I’m going to spend my money buying natural things, then I better know what natural means!
So why don’t we take a crack at it? Maybe we can figure out a way to define this mass-marketed word.
In my mind, there are a few ways to approach this question. One, we could do a comparison; find out what’s in a natural product and compare those ingredients to the ingredients of a product that isn’t natural. Two, we could find out how the experts determine whether or not a product is natural. Or three, we could see where in the world this word came from in the first place!
So, why not? Let’s do all three!
But not all at once. One at a time seems more manageable. For today, let’s try to differentiate between two similar items. One that is natural, and one that isn’t.
Since we don’t know what natural means yet, I think it’ll be easier to start with the non-natural item and compare from there. So, let’s pick something that we would consider as far from natural as it gets: a Twinkie.
Ahhhh… where to start… What about an eye test? It comes in a colorful box and is wrapped in plastic (I wonder how those are made…) And once you get past those, you’ll find the Twinkie: a soggy, yet dry, personal cake. It is oddly yellow in color and, if you dare to cut it open (or, worse yet, bite it) it has a creamy, white, gooey center. Perhaps not too unusual in today’s society… But let’s back up and look at the box again. What exactly is in a Twinkie? What ingredients are put together to create this edible sponge.
Well, I’m certainly not going to list them all… there are about 40 ingredients… Yep. 4-0. But let’s look at a few. It has some food coloring made from petroleum (which, as you know, is a main part of gasoline, asphalt, & other edible-ish things…). But petroleum is natural, right? It comes from the ground. And I know what wheat flour is. A dried, ground powder of wheat, which is a crop that is grown on farms. So, okay, maybe Twinkies aren’t that bad. They even have whole eggs and beef fat. And I think it’d be hard to say that cows and chicken eggs aren’t as natural as it gets! Next, it has some high fructose corn syrup made from corn, another natural crop. It even has water. Water has to be natural! Polysorbate 60 comes from vegetable oil, which comes from the seeds or fruits of a vegetable, so I think that’s natural too. Basically, every ingredient (minus the artificial flavor, I guess… don’t know where that comes from) has a natural source. Doesn’t sound too bad…
But wait until it meets its competitor: The Lemonzest + Blueberry Luna Mash-Ups Bar. Just from the colorful box and plastic wrapper, we learn that this bar is gluten free (check), non-GMO (check), made with organic oats (check), and naturally flavored (bingo!). Good luck, Twinkie! Take a look at this bar!
First, it has waaaay fewer ingredients! Only 31. Wait. That’s actually quite a few… 3-1? Dang. Okay, well at least the ingredients are good for you! It has those organic oats! And soy protein isolate, which comes from soy, probably (I remember this ingredient from the Twinkie…). And a bunch of different types of syrup: brown rice syrup, cane syrup (twice), chicory fiber syrup, wheat syrup, and glucose syrup. Okay, well, I was expecting at least one of those to be maple syrup… I really don’t know what those are. Wheat syrup? What is that, Luna? At least the Twinkie had real wheat flour! But, hey, it’s gluten-free! And there’s some palm kernel solids and natural flavors... Seriously? That’s what they meant by naturally flavored…? They just put straight up natural flavor in there? But what is it? Where does it come from?
Okay, this comparison isn’t going very well. I must’ve missed something. The Luna bar costs me almost two bucks, while I could get ten Twinkies for less than $3. They really shouldn’t have anything in common. So why does one get the bad rap of being an unhealthy, completely unnatural food, while the other gets to promote its naturalness? Even though, based on the source of the ingredients, they seem to be more similar than they are different.
Who decided to call this Luna bar “natural” in the first place? Maybe I just picked the wrong natural product...
I know that not all of them are this bad. The Cashew Cookie Larabar I ate yesterday had just two ingredients: cashews and dates. That sounds like it’s natural. Cashews come from cashew tree and dates come from a type of palm tree. I would imagine, then, that the product is natural too… But then again, most of the ingredients from our first two products also had natural sources. So, can we really say that one is natural, and one isn’t? Who gets to decide that? Before we try to reason that one ourselves, I think we really need to find out what those experts say…
Want to read more? Come back in March, when our next blog graduates from “draft” to “final version”! Maybe the natural experts can help guide our path. More questions to come!
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