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Your Parrot Place - Food, toys, accessories and more! :: How Natural is "Natural?"
| How Natural is "Natural?" |
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How Natural is "Natural?"
by Gudrun Maybaum
www.totallyorganics.com E-mail: gudrun@totallyorganics.com
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.
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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.
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