What's Really Natural?

Humans are a natural product of evolution; ergo, everything humans due is "natural". Only those things done by "unnatural" entities (be they supernatural or subnatural) are unnatural.

This, of course is not to say that all things humans due are good. It is only stating that drawing a line between "natural" and "product of human nature" is an artificial boundary that smacks of snobbery...

Most people buying food products labeled "natural" are doing so because they think they are getting healthier foods. To label something that does not naturally occur in nature as "natural" is deceptive advertising. In addition, the food companies that are selling genetically modified foods (GMO) are not telling the public about the brain tumors in labratory rats fed GMO corn, or the other biological problems resulting from the consumption of GMO food products. The only reason they are selling them is because they can convince farmers to buy their seed in which they get guaranteed prices for their crops if they agree to continue to buy the seeds from the seller. And the seller owns the patents on the GMO crops. What Monsanto is doing is selling their seeds to farms adjacent to other farms not using GMO seeds. When the pollen from the GMO crops is carried by the wind to the adjacent farm, some of the non-GMO crop becomes GMO. Then Monsanto, with their multibillion dollar budget, sues the non-GMO farmer for stealing their patent and the courts stand behind Monsanto. There are six companies that grow over 80% of the food in the United States, and Monsanto is one of the biggest. They're trying to take complete control of the U.S. food supply with their toxic GMO food products. See the movie 'Food, Inc'.

The question is not whether it is good or it is bad. A lot of "natural" things are bad, too (think malaria, earthquakes, etc.). I do not condone Monsanto's business practices, or marketing scams that tend to obfuscate the truth. However, these, and many other human activities, are natural, in that humans are very much a part of the natural world. Claiming otherwise further obfuscates the issues...

Natural is from birth to death-a)no artificial insemination,cloning,test tube baby,b)no powdered milk only breast/cow milk,c)no chemical fertiliser only cow/animal dung,leaves,straw,hay etc,d)no chemical medicine only native medicines e)no democracy where one community rules another due to numerical strength or american support,f)no interference from neighbouring countries,g)no UN to approve political crimes as internal affair,sovereignty of state etc h)minimise deforestation,i)minimise killing animals in jungles,j) no fast food,cook your own food,k)do not pollute air,water,soil,sea,electricity etc and so on

What the heck is Natural Medicine? I suspect you mean chemicals unnaturally extracted from a natural item! So how does that differ from creating what you call chemical medicines?

Then you mention cooking your own food. Cooked food is not natural. And cooking your own is no more natural than paying someone else to do it for you.

On the other hand polluting the earth is entirely natural - I'm thinking sewage here. Not just human but also every other creature on the planet.

Those are all relatively artificial definitions of "natural".

a) Let's ban all micro-organisms that only reproduce by cloning. Wait- we have to ban all higher organisms as well, since the normal cell division in the growth process is a cloning process...

b) Let's go ahead and ban powdered milk and stand by and watch the more economically-challenged suffer higher levels of malnutrition, because we can't get "fresh" milk to them before it spoils.

c) No chemical fertilizers- first, let's cut back the human population to maybe 20% of the existing population, so more "natural" methods of re-constituting the necessary nutrients of the soil can feed those of us left (maybe a little genocide for a change?) This fits nicely with B above.

d) No aspirin, no polio vaccine, no small pox vaccine...

e) Why not no democracy at all? What is "natural" about democracy? Where does democracy exist in the world except in human societies?

f) Let's stand by and watch the Khmer Rouge murder all the Cambodian intelligentsia, or let the Turks and Iraqis wipe out all their Kurds, or the Sudanese or the Congolese wipe out whoever they consider the current public enemy (this can be justified as supporting C above)

g) Same as f

h) This one I like- but I know a lot of people in the jungle that use slash and burn agricultural practices- we have to eliminate them, too

i) We have already minimized killing animals in the jungles- there aren't that many left to kill. There isn't a whole lot of jungle left to support too many of these animals left.

j) No fast food? I'm not sure on this one- why not ban cooking all together- eat your food raw, the way other animals do.

k) Don't pollute the air, water, soil, sea, etc. (I'm not sure how one pollutes electricity)- OK, stop breathing, urinating, defecating...

'natural' is almost as vague as 'green'. The only natural thing is that people will swallow marketing bilge. Unless you're lucky enough to have the time/space to grow your own crops and raise your own animals, it's pretty much pot-luck. Lucky dip for the Monsanto down at the local supermarket - we ain't gonna win, not with that much money at stake. "GM Free" labels ? I'll be a horses *** before I believe that to be totally true.

Food contamination is the worst kind of unnatural thing nowadays. In China there were melamine contamination.In UK cattle feed was contaminated. In many countries fruits were ripened by carbide and fish preserved by some chemical. Adding hormone etc even to chicken,calves,cows is harmful. These are few which I know,how about other additives not known to public?.

The meaning of the word "natural" is varied and open to interpretation, I suspect that it has different meanings for different people, as such it should be banned from food claims altogether...

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/natural

Your observation is a prerequisite for discussion. If a definition for "natural" can't be agreed upon, then there can be no real discussion. The other current and prevalent definition without agreement is "person." Maybe the 2 can be settled on at the same time. What is a "natural" "person?" One who can eat, but doesn't eat GMOs?

Naturally, I couldn't help posting.

Cross breeding and genetic manipulation are not the same thing. Cross breeding can and does occur in nature, the insertion of genes from other organisms does not ordinarily happen in nature.

We can quibble about definitions, but I think the companies doing the advertising are aware of what people consider to be 'natural', and that this label appeals to the same reasoning or sentiment which causes people to avoid GMO food (if they can). It is clearly incorrect to classify as 'natural' something that doesn't occur in nature as we know it, and the charge of false advertising is quite reasonable.

As for the breeding of plants and animals which would generally be considered 'natural' enough, this can also be taken to extremes. Selection of traits for food production can be cruel in specific cases - eg chickens bred for a breast size so heavy that they cannot walk. If you consider that natural selection could not possibly favour a bird which is disabled in this manner, it also could be said to cross the line as to what can, or cannot reasonably be termed 'natural'.

Arsmith-

"...the insertion of genes from other organisms does not ordinarily happen in nature...." is not correct. Micro-organisms very commonly exchange genetic material in a process called "natural genetic transformation".

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC372978/

This is how some microbes develop immunity to antibacterial compounds, even though they have never been exposed to the chemicals directly (i.e., "superbugs" found in the soil).

If you want to get nitpicky the exchange of genetic material in bacteria is commonly as plasmid DNA. This is a separate bit of code from the organism's main genome. The exchange of plasmids is normal or 'natural' for bacteria both within and between species.

Whereas in the case of GMO corn, the gene for BT toxin is spliced into the corn DNA using a virus as a vector. As you've already stated, you think it should be labeled 'natural', whereas I do believe that's false advertising. So... we don't agree!

I am NOT passing judgement on the processes being practiced, but it seems that even we humans have had bits of DNA spliced in by viruses over the millennia- but that may be a more controversial hypothesis than the other...

My whole point is that the word "natural" defines an artificial boundary that the rest of the universe does not necessarily recognize...

It is indeed a deep thought you're getting at, and of course some truth is in it... BUT, this question is about what labels mean to consumers.

I rest my case. (The rest of the universe will surely mind its own business...)

cwarner,

My original comment was meant to address the harming of our food supply by corporations whose only motive is to make money, not to provide the public with healthy food. One can argue ad infinitum about symantics concerning what "natural" really means, and talk endlessly about natures biological activities and mutations, but in the meantime people are being harmed by the practice of introducing new genetic material into our food species. It's a case of science gone mad. You may or may not agree but there is ample evidence that GMO foods cause harm to laboratory test animals. And I suspect that applies to us as we are being used as guinea pigs in very dangerous experiments. The question you must answer for yourself is this: do you want to be an experimental subject of Monsanto, only to discover years later that their GMO foods actually do irrepairable damage the human body?

There have been a lot of things done to the food supply long before GM ever hit the market. for instance, breeding grains to provide multiple harvests per year- never mind that the seeds harvested are not viable. What is the nutritional content of these fast-growing grains- can it possibly be at the same level as slower gorwing varieties? Next, think of all the doping that goes in to raising meat- growth hormones, antibiotics, etc. Nothing natural or GM here- just plain poisoning (both of us humans and other residents of the biosphere). Focusing the attack on GM products puts up a smoke screen that hides these other practices in plain sight. GM is nothing more than the same old game of trying to get more with less, the benefits to the consumer being defined as lower prices, not nutrition...

I think the definition of the word natural when it comes to food stuffs needs to be better defined. As I could say there is little that is present in our stores that is of nature. Cows have been domesticated it no longer lives it's natural state in the wild. Years of interbreeding has changed it's form from that wild state. Same with most our crops with out the laboratory DNA modification. The corn today isn't what the Native American Indians presented us with when the first Europeans came ashore.

Defining natural foods needs to be done by the people not the business or our governments.Those businesses that have most the control with too many politicians in their pockets are not going to decide on the best interest of the people.

Maybe it's time push our government expand the food label to make it more conclusive as to the source of ingredients.