A Missing Link Between Sports Nutrition and Performance
Biothera
Breaking News on Food & Beverage Development - North AmericaEU edition | Asian edition
Please fill in the box below to tell us why you feel the post breaks our rules. When you are finished, click on "Send" so that it can be reviewed by a moderator.
Spotlight
  Former FDA official on GMO labeling: ‘Science doesn’t always win’Whether the food industry likes it or not, when it comes to GMO labeling, the “train appears... |
 Victory for Dannon, General Mills and Cabot in ‘frivolous’ yogurt identity lawsuitsDannon, General Mills and Cabot have emerged victorious in a legal wrangle over the definition of ‘yogurt’... |
 We should get down to 2,300mg sodium/day, but data does not support 1,500mg target, says IOMNew research supports significant reductions in sodium from where most Americans are today, but does not justify... |
 The American diet: One continuous snack? And why more people skip lunch than breakfastThe percentage of energy derived from snacks in the American diet has increased from 12% in the... |
 Kraft CEO: 'We will not tolerate incursions into our market share'Tony Vernon, CEO of Kraft Foods Inc., says the company will ramp up its revitalizing of iconic... |
 Hain Celestial: ‘We are much further down the road on non-GMO than any other company out there…’The price differential between Hain Celestial’s brands and mainstream grocery brands will close over time as the... |
 Drug, club and foodservice: The next big growth opportunities for gluten-free?Drug stores, club stores and the foodservice market could be the next big areas of opportunity for... |
Most Popular News
Key Industry Events
Live Supplier Webinars
On demand Supplier Webinars
Probiotics: The Path to Better Digestive Health through Quality Clinical Trials
DuPont Nutrition & Health
DuPont Nutrition & Health
What's natural anyway?
I wouldn't have voted for Prop 37, for any number of reasons, but I do have a pet peeve about the use of the word "natural". Unless and until it is rigorously defined, I'd love to see it banned from labels and, indeed, from advertising.
The word is routinely used to reassure us, but the reassurance is phony because natural and good are hardly the same thing.
I occasionally drink decaffeinated coffee. I'm told it's better for me, but it's not the way coffee is naturally. I like to bake bread, but the flour I use is milled. I use very little salt, but when I do use salt, it is iodized to help me avoid goiter. Milk is pasteurized to avoid bacterial contamination.
But for sure, if we decide that treating GMO food is automatically not natural, by any sane reasoning we would have to also consider not natural any food with novel genes. For example, bananas have fifty percent more chromosomes than wild bananas, which is why they don't have annoying seeds. Rio Red grapefruit have been mutated using gamma rays. I see in a garden catalog that you can buy a tree which will bear three different kinds of fruit.
If we don;t know what it means, natural on a label tells us nothing.
Posted by Charles M. Rader
12 November 2012 | 23h23