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Lecture 5: The Fallacy That Natural Is 

Always Better 

The Fallacy That Natural Is Always Better 

Lecture 5

You could take a vitamin C molecule that is derived from rose hips 
and a vitamin C molecule that was synthesized in a laboratory. The 
chemicals are identical. There’s no test you can do to distinguish one 
molecule from the other. Is one therefore natural and the other one not 
natural? If so, then what does that mean? 

W

e all want the food that we eat to be wholesome and nutritious, the 
medication and supplements that we take to be safe and effective, 
and everything we come in contact with in our environment to be 

pure and safe. Often, the assurance that these things are true is covered by 
calling something natural. But what does it really mean to be natural?

Most people would assume that being natural means that it occurs in nature, 
which super

¿

 cially is sound or reasonable. But what about a molecule that 

is manufactured or synthesized but is identical to a molecule that occurs in 
nature? Is the synthetic molecule natural because it’s identical to a molecule 
that occurs in nature, or does its origin matter? Does the actual physical 
molecule itself, not just its chemical structure, have to derive from something 
natural like a plant or animal?

We can also consider degrees of processing. If you take something that 
derives from nature—a plant or an animal—and do stuff to it, is there any 
amount of processing that you can do that would make it pass over a fuzzy 
line into being no longer natural? What about, for example, just simple 
mechanical processing like chopping or grinding? And what about cooking, 
which changes the chemical structure of things to some degree? The point 
is there is no real clear demarcation line between something that is entirely 
natural and something that is completely arti

¿

 cial. 

The deeper question here is what the implications are to human health of 
something being natural versus not. Being natural is no guarantee of being 
safe or healthful. There are many poisons in nature, including hemlock, 
cyanide, arsenic, and animal and insect venoms. 

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Many people use the notion of natural being better than synthetic as a 
justi

¿

 cation for lifestyle choices even though the evidence may not support 

those choices. One group that takes the notion of being natural to a bit of 
an extreme is those who advocate eating raw food. They claim that raw 
food preserves the nutritious value and natural enzymes of food and that by 
cooking food, you are in essence killing the food. But scienti

¿

 c evidence 

does not support the claims behind this. For example, there are only minimal 
differences in the nutritional value of food that is raw versus lightly or 
even moderately cooked. Some advocates also claim that raw food is more 
digestible than cooked food. This claim also is not true. Some foods—like 
meats and starches—are easier to digest once they are cooked. 

Another concern that comes under the banner of natural being better is 
the use of hormones in the production of meat, eggs, and milk. There are 
several kinds of hormones that are given to animals. Some are endogenous 
hormones—hormones that animals make for themselves ordinarily—and 
some are exogenous steroids. These hormones in meat have been banned 
in Canada and the European Union based on alleged health concerns. But 

Organic produce has not been shown to be more nutritious than conventionally 
farmed produce.

© JupiterImages/Polka Dot/Thinkstock.

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Lecture 5: The Fallacy That Natural Is 

Always Better 

this is largely based on theory and the popular notion that hormones are 
not safe—it’s not based on any scienti

¿

 c evidence. In the United States and 

elsewhere, use of these hormones is 
carefully monitored and regulated. 

Another issue is the use of antibiotics 
to minimize infection in animals 
in industrial settings. Do these 
antibiotics pose any risk or threat to 
human health? One concern is that 
extensive use might increase the risk 
of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. 

This is a very legitimate concern: There may be an indirect concern for 
human health there. 

What about irradiating food? Again, some people oppose the notion of 
passing radiation through food because it’s not natural and may alter the food 
from its natural state. However, the radiation passes through the food; there 
is no radioactive material in the food itself. Irradiating food is very effective 
in preserving food because it kills most of the bacteria. Irradiation may break 
down some nutrients, but the overall effect on the food is similar to that of 
cooking. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that if we irradiated 
50% of the meat and poultry in the United States, we could prevent nearly 
900,000 cases of infection, 8500 hospitalizations, and over 6000 catastrophic 
illnesses resulting in 350 deaths each year. The effectiveness of irradiating 
food is really not in question, but most of the opposition to it seems to be 
based on the notion that it’s altering food from its natural state.

A very big issue with the notion of natural is organic food. Is being organic 
ultimately an appeal to this naturalistic notion, or are there legitimate concerns 
about organic versus conventional farming? One question that comes up 
is whether organic produce is more nutritious than conventionally farmed 
produce. A 2010 review, in the 

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

, of the 

last 50 years of research showed that there were no signi

¿

 cant differences in 

nutritional value and no health bene

¿

 ts from eating organic food. There were 

only 12 studies that were most important in this review, but the evidence we 
have so far does not show any health or nutritional advantage. 

Ŷ

There are only minimal 
differences in the nutritional 
value of food that is raw 
versus lightly or even 
moderately cooked.

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Fallacy Files, “Appeal to Nature.”

Gardner, 

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

. 

Novella, “All Natural Arsenic.”

1. 

What exactly does it mean to be “all natural”?

2. 

Are foods more healthful if they are organic, raw, or not 
genetically modi

¿

 ed?

3. 

Why do you think the concept of “natural” has such widespread appeal?

    Suggested Reading

    Questions to Consider

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Lecture 6: Probiotics and Our Bacterial Friends

Probiotics and Our Bacterial Friends

Lecture 6

People come to appreciate the bacteria that occupy their bodies and 
the role that they play when they’re exposed to antibiotics. After a long 
course, or sometimes even not that long a course, of what we call broad 
spectrum antibiotics—antibiotics that kill a lot of different kinds of 
bacteria—this normal 

À

 ora of bacteria can be decreased. When that 

happens, we become more susceptible to infection. 

Y

ou’ve probably heard the phrase “no person is an island.” That may 
be truer than you realize, for we are intimately close with billions 
of bacteria that coat every surface inside and out of our bodies. 

Soon after the discovery of bacteria in the early 20

th

 century, the biologist 

Eli Metchnikoff suggested that some of these bacteria might actually be 
important to our health—and that maybe we could alter human health by 
altering these bacteria. He spawned the 

¿

 eld known as probiotics, which is 

the topic of this lecture. 

One of the core myths I’d like to address is the notion that all bacteria are 
bad. People tend to think of bacteria as germs—things that cause disease—
when that is mostly not true. There are millions of different bacterial 
species in the world. The vast majority of those bacteria are completely 
neutral to human health. A very small minority are pathological; they 
will cause disease. Another small minority are actually useful; they aid in 
digestion, for example. 

Every surface of our body that’s exposed to the environment, inside and out, 
is occupied with layers of bacteria. Collectively, these bacteria are called 
the micro

À

 ora, or the microbiota. There are 2 basic bene

¿

 cial effects of 

the microbiota that we focus on. The 

¿

 rst is that it’s critical to the immune 

system. The carpet of bacteria actually crowds out harmless bacteria by 
taking up all the space and all the resources. Bacteria also aid in digestion. 
Bacteria break down foodstuffs like complex carbohydrates. They not only 
eat it for themselves, but they also break it down in a way that then we can 
further break it down and digest it ourselves.