Natural products have become a big hit these days. Most of us think it is a good idea to avoid putting toxic chemicals in our body, so natural products fit a great bill. The problem, of course, is how we define natural.
In the most simple of terms, nearly everything is a natural product. Ultimately, there are certain elemental materials and everything is a combination of those atoms. Yes, even a hamburger from McDonalds is composed of those basic elements.
The same goes for plastics and other items such as Twinkies. At their atomic base, they are just as natural as an organic banana. They are simply a combination of various atoms such as iron, hydrogen and so on.
Obviously, this is not what is meant by natural products when we consider products. We have a distinct division in our thinking between a piece of corn and a Twinkie. The difficult question to answer is where exactly this dividing line is?
There is an ongoing argument on this very issue, but most now look to the biological. Many try to define a natural product as anything produced by an animal or plant without over interference by mankind.
This seems fairly straightforward when we think it through. Corn kernels are clearly a substance produced by an organism found in nature. One just needs to drive through the Midwest to see the proof in all the fields of corn.
The definition gets a bit murkier as we deal with less obvious substances. Aspirin is an amazing substance that is derived from the bark of a Willow. Of course, we do not take bits of bark for headaches. We take a processed product.
The dividing line between natural and artificial products is clearly blurry here. When you buy a bottle of aspirin, are you buying a natural product or not? It clearly starts as a natural product, but what about the process of producing it as a pill?
For many people, the proper definition of a natural product is one that is produced by a biological organism that is not processed in a manner that fundamentally changes its chemical composition.
Using our new definition, we can see a banana is clearly a natural product. In contrast, a mass produced white flour bread with a smidge of banana and a bunch of chemicals is not.
The one thing that is clear in the natural product debate is that nothing is clear. Ultimately, how you answer the question is a personal matter. When shopping, however, take natural product claims with a grain of salt and read the labels closely.
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A staph infection is a dangerous thing. AllTerrainCo.com has a natural product that kills it and provides the proof up front.
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