Define it

The topic of health foods is like a tree. At the trunk of the tree it seems simple perhaps, but when you start looking into it, it branches off in all sorts of directions. It’s not so much healthy versus not healthy, but somewhere in between. It can be overwhelming to research and even more so to understand. We will try to take one branch at a time.

In order to understand all the products on the food market, it is important to understand—or at least sort-of-understand—a few terms. To start with, we will look at all-natural, whole, and organic foods.

All-natural foods, according to one website I read, are foods that are “fresher, minimally processed, and safer.” It’s vague, I know. According to the dictionary there are 15 different definitions of the word natural. The FDA has no official definition of the term “natural.” It does, however, have a policy for the use of the term: namely that a natural product is one that has not had any artificial or synthetic substance added that would not normally be expected in the food, such as artificial flavors or colors.

Whole foods are anything that is produced with all its edible elements still intact for the most part, little or nothing is added, and it is processed very little (again, vague). Here is an example of one of my favorite whole foods: whole wheat flour is a whole food because it is ground into flour after being harvested, but no other process has taken place, such as striping the wheat germ and bran away.

Organic foods are any food that is grown or produced without the use of additives, hormones, or pesticides. Organic milk, for instance, comes from cows that have not been hormone-injected and feed off grain that is grown pesticide-free.

While the definitions are a bit vague, it seems as though going with all-natural, whole, and organic foods is a step in the right direction. Still, I have more questions than answers at this point.