How natural is natural

How Natural is "Natural?"

by Gudrun Maybaum

Within the last 10 years or so, more and more people are looking
for natural foods. In the beginning it was easy, because this
trend was not a money-maker. As the market has grown, one needs
to start looking at how natural some of this natural stuff really is.

As soon as food is no longer in its natural state and has been
processed in the lightest way, one can be nearly certain they
contain additives I'd rather not have in my food or that of my
birds. These additives are used to preserve, thicken, color,
sweeten, enhance or modify the flavor. Most of them are synthetic,
and more and more people are developing sensitivities to them.

Research studies on animals show that sodium benzoate, sulfites
and sulfur dioxide, for example, cause allergies, arrhythmia,
itching, migraines and hyperactivity. MSG (monosodium glutamate),
artificial food colorings and flavorings can cause allergic
reactions, brain and retinal (eye) damage.

BHA and BHT both can provoke skin and respiratory problems,
lowering the absorption of vitamin K. I don’t even want to go into
the colorings, which can cause, between a battalion of others,
allergic reactions, thyroid tumors and hormonal changes.

I could go on here for pages.

So we are reading more the labels of what we want to buy and are
seeking ‘natural’ ingredients.

This is where it becomes confusing, because there are also
natural and modified natural and synthesized natural or
biotechnological-derived ingredients and additives. I think I
know what natural means, but what does "modified, synthesized,
biotechological natural additives" mean?

Let's take the added flavors in a lot of foods as an example.
Natural flavor more often than not means it is a flavor
synthesized in a food science lab. Natural does not mean it is
natural, it just means it tastes natural. If you want real
vanilla and not synthetic flavor, you have to look for a label
that says vanilla extract, instead of natural vanilla flavor.

Ascorbic acid is often declared as vitamin C. Why then is rosehips
added to the ascorbic acid? Because it is a synthetically-produced
part of vitamin C, so it is not natural and it is not the whole
vitamin. Tests have shown that ascorbic acid helps but does not
completely heal scurvy, which requires natural vitamin C in the
form of oranges, for example.

Soy bean products are considered natural healthy foods, although
they are so processed that there is really nothing natural left.
In this case, that's good, because soy beans in their natural
state contain large quantities of natural toxins or
"anti-nutrients". So why do we want to eat something which has
to be processed to death before it is safe to be eaten?

A real natural food is sucrose. We don’t want sugar in our birds'
food, right? But there is sucrose, even organic sucrose, in many
birds' foods. Oh yes, it is natural. It’s ordinary table sugar,
obtained from the "juice" of sugarcane, sugar beet or the sap of
the sugar maple.

All of this is sometimes very frustrating. We have a responsibility
not to just believe what we read, but to become informed customers.
Three years ago, I did not know that vitamin K1 is very good for
many things and vitamin K3 is very toxic. Sometimes it is a
nuisance, but it is also good to know what we eat and give our
beloved birds.

http://www.beaktreats.com/