natural nutrition foods

What is a natural food? -A food without artificial flavours or colours? -A food that is not overly processed? Is ‘nature-identical’ not natural and therefore artificial? Or is natural equivalent to organic? Is ‘natural’ nutritious? There is a sudden surge of food products declaring claiming ‘100% natural’ or ‘contains no artificial colours’. However these foods are loaded with sugar, fats, preservatives or nature-identical colours. So how is a consumer to decide what is is good for her? The FDA also does not come to her rescue as there is no clear mandate for making a ‘natural’ claim. Here, the only sensible way to find out the truth is to read the label thoroughly. A clean label will have a clean ingredient list sans chemical sounding names, a clean nutrition table with the nutrition derived from the natural ingredients, through minimal processing.

Ideally a natural food is raw food or food cooked painstakingly from farm fresh ingredients, again, not overcooked that will destroy natural enzymes. However the modern-day hectic pace of life that demands better utilization of time for more productive work has triggered a need for ready-to-serve and ready-to-eat foods. This convenience has now become the bane of our life, causing a new set of lifestyle diseases.

Why should you prefer natural foods over foods containing artificial flavours and preservatives? Research is alarmingly revealing the harmful effects of additives in food. Dr. Jim Stevenson and his team of researchers from the University of Southampton, U.K., just published the results of their study in the September issue of the Lancet: “Food additives and hyperactive behavior in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the community.” “These findings show that adverse effects are not just seen in children with extreme hyperactivity (ie, ADHD),” the report states, “but can also be seen in the general population and across the range of severities of hyperactivity. Our results are consistent with those from previous studies and extend the findings to show significant effects in the general population” [Lancet, 7].