All Natural
0
0
0
0I don’t know what the hell a Tarmagaxx is, I just know that I want to eat it…right now.
Whatever it is, it sounds delicious.
The labeling on food products here in the United States definitely leaves something to be desired. Most states don’t have clear rules on what a company can and can’t say about their product, especially when it comes to the word “Natural” even though every big corporation wants to use it thanks to its unanimously positive nature. In our modern culture full of high technology and genetically engineered organisms “natural” is always good. The rules for labeling something as natural are so vague in most places that I have to wonder, what the hell is so unnatural about some products that corporations are legally obligated to tell you it is only 97% natural?
Clearly the only answer here is some seriously supernatural shit. We’re talking dark wizards. We’re talking cauldrons. We’re talking about words like “Tarmagaxx” being thrown around.
Ultimately, the issue here is defining what is and isn’t “natural”. The whole system of natural food labeling is a bit of a mental quagmire. How do we really define what is natural and what isn’t? GMOs, chemical pesticides, and man-made fertilizers are just how things are done nowadays and it’s hard to argue with the fact that they’re effective at increasing crop yields, but at what cost? It’s hard to say what the long term issues are for some of these methods and it’s not as if you can blame people for worrying about their health. Are some people probably just being reactionary or taking advantage of a vague and somewhat worrying situation to make bogus legal claims? Almost certainly. Besides, it’s not like mankind hasn’t been making adjustments to the natural order since the dawn of our species. Crop growing in general is a man-made process and domesticated animals aren’t exactly “natural”. Dogs didn’t exactly start out being man’s best friend. But are there serious concerns with the food we consume here in the United States? Absolutely.
Sure, we may not be eating Tarmgaxxes or other paranormal foodstuffs, and even if we were we probably wouldn’t know about it, but either way, it’s good to at least know a little about what you’re eating and cooking with foods that are grown and harvested in traditional ways can’t really hurt.
That said, I’d still like to know if there’s some Tarmagaxx in my cereal…so that I can purchase it immediately and shove it into my gullet.
Now I wish there were a chain of fast food restaurants run by sorcerers…
There’s no way it could be worse for you than McDonald’s.
0000
Tarmagaxx, the (Tarmangunus Hippothomus):
A Silicium based lifeform native to the 3rd moon of Tharyx (Tarman), it is known as a base ingredience for 90% of all commercial cereals. How the Tarmagaxx is hunted and transported to earth is a trade secret of the breakfast cereals guild, it is said that the punishment for leaking information about the Tarmagaxx is an unspeakable horror.
The Tarmagaxx is a small round being developed by Yog-Sothoth as an after-dinner treat. It has been described as tasting like magenta.
Very moreish too!
I’ll have a Tarmagaxx on rye please…
I find it most humourous (not really) when the ingredient has a name like “brominated vegetable oil” (commonly found in citrus sodas like Mountain Dew, it’s used as a stabilizer… A name of something (relatively) natural (vegetable oil) with a name of an elemental/chemical attached usually isn’t a good thing…
Then of course you have your standard vitamins (like C, B12 etc) that are listed by their chemical name (Vitamin C is ascorbic acid)…confusing folks…into thinking that they aren’t natural …then again these are often synthesized…so natural source or chemical….then again, isn’t chemicals “natural”… all things are natural, they come from this earth, right?
…so where is the distinction? Using “natural” to denote that something is healthy for you?… Then you have unscrupulous folks would would use it to make a “buck”… (example: all those “natural” diet pills)…
Anyways, I think I’ve rambled enough for now.
Water is a chemical (H20) and is also natural. Chemicals can indeed be natural. The real issue is synthesized chemicals, because that’s how we get most of the radioactive elements. Imagine what else goes wrong when scientists synthesize chemicals. So, that last 3% is likely synthesized…by dark wizards.
Know how you defeat a dark wizard? (If you don’t want bad-ass dark wizards making tarmagaxx, that is.) Buy 100% USDA certified organic food. Products can be listed as 90% organic, because nine tenths of the product are organic, so make sure it says 100%. But if something is synthesized, or genetically modified, then the USDA won’t certify it as organic.
Ermm…I’m not the child of organic farmers, I’m not trying to up my family’s profits. No, not at all >.>
Food labelling gets to be even more of a quagmire when you can’t have or shop for someone who can’t have certain things. My SO has celiacs, and it turns out even ‘natural flavors’ is suspect because so many places list that because they put flour on their conveyor belts.
The FDA allows companies to label castoreum, a substance derived from beaver anal glands, as “natural flavoring.” It is used in a range of products including perfumes, baking goods (vanilla flavoring for example), alcohol, hard candy, chewing gum, etc.
Source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=A8OyTzGGJhYC&lpg=PA277&ots=YeByZKDtcL&dq=castoreum%20food%20ingredients&pg=PA276#v=onepage&q&f=false
I’ve had to explain to a friend, seven or eight times, that her refusal to take aspirin when she drinks willow bark tea (yes, really – I live in an area where being a hippie is easy if you’ve got enough money) is downright weird. The active ingredient in both is acetylsalicylic acid, and at least when you take a pill, you know exactly how much you’re getting and what else is in it. The only reason that one is “natural” is that it grew on a tree and the other was made in a lab by mixing a bunch of molecules together.
The willow only has the precursor salicylic acid – which is usually worse for one’s health. (The unprotected phenol tends to give stomach ulcers and the like.)
I wonder the same question when I saw those egg cartons, and it said that 95% of it is eggs…
Maybe, if you can’t pronounce the name, it isn’t natural? I don’t even know.
If it’s not natural, it’s probably something from the Qlippoth. Like Cathariel, Sheireil, or Dietary Fiber.
Honestly I’d settle for legal taxonomy for ingredients that actually coincided with the actual scientific taxonomy. As is, quite a lot of stuff can be hidden under one or another catch all terms in the name of preserving trade secrets, regardless of whether it’s “natural” or artificial”, not to mention explicit terms that are legally redefined to allow them to include stuff outside the actual real world technical meaning.
Worth noting, the FDA allows any component that occurs naturally, whatever its ultimate origin, to be labelled as “natural.” This also allows people to label drugs that probably ought to be regulated as “natrual extracts,” again regardless of their origin. A good example of the latter is melatonin, which is extract of valerian root. Melatonin found in stores is most often synthesized from petrochemicals. Same deal with a lot of protein supplements like leucine that you might find in animal feed. 97% natural probably suggests that your cereal had some things in it, like pigment, preservatives, or the like, that doesn’t naturally occur in a plant or animal. Doesn’t mean anything bad, necessarily.
One of the ways you can be sure the food is non-gmo is to check for this label.
Sorry forgot the link, lol.
http://www.nongmoproject.org
The word “natural” has lost its meaning when it comes to food and has become a meaningless buzzword. GMOs, artificial fertilizers are fine although chemical pesticides less so (one of the advantages of some GMOs is actually you don’t need to use pesticides because the plant is already resistant).
It’s the childish problem of wanting things without accepting the cost those things have. We want chocolate without the thousand of underage workers that work in terrible conditions for pittances to keep chocolate cheap. We want red meat with choice cuts without having to worry about things like the animals they are cut from.
People either create a fantasy where all food is made on a nice farm in a clean, nice factory where everyone is paid well and everything is fine. It’s either that or accepting that your pleasure has come by the suffering of others or denying yourself pleasures like chocolate and red meat.
The people insisting on their foods being “natural” and “organic” just add the fantasy that farmers deliberately cripple themselves by using antiquated or obsolete farming practices that do not taint their food with uncomfortable omnipresence of modernity and industrialism.
> natural – found in nature and not involving anything made or done by people. (c) Cambridge dictionary