NATURAL FOODS. The concept of natural foods is obscure from many perspectives. Although international literature offers no clear definition, the term is used in food surveys, in the food industry, in the marketing of foods, and in modern discourses surrounding food choice. "Natural" is defined as 'produced by nature, that is, not produced artificially' in Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary. Since all food can be said to be produced by nature, the term "natural foods" becomes even more unclear unless one considers the meaning Felipe Fernández-Armesto has proposed: "the oyster is eaten uncooked and unkilled. It is the nearest thing we have to 'natural' food—the only dish which deserves to be called 'au naturel' without irony" (p. 2).

If the concept of natural foods originates from the French phrase au naturel, that is, eating something uncooked and alive, it would relate first to modes of processing. An "unkilled" food like the oyster is a food uncooked and is, by that definition, a food that has not been altered by human hand. Thus natural foods are foods not deliberately altered in the course of production and processing. Asked in a study how they perceived naturalness in relation to food production, respondents in England and Denmark said they perceived organic food and free-range livestock products as the most natural foods and genetically modified foods as the most unnatural foods (Von Alvensleben).

Furthermore, natural foods can be interpreted in terms of connections to nostalgic rural life (Lupton). Yet regional foods, products that are not imported from exotic, faraway lands and not distributed in ways injurious to the environment are also representations of natural foods. Moreover, the concept of natural foods is related more to some groups in society than to others. Some associate natural foods with specific food choice ideologies, such as vegetarianism, and thus exclude certain animal products while including plants, cereals, fruits, and berries, preferably produced in an organic or ecological way (Lindeman and Sirelius).

The marketing strategies for natural foods may be understood on two levels. First: natural foods are considered unprocessed foods in the sense that they are not influenced by industry for mass production. Second: natural foods are seen as originating in the vegetable kingdom. Both dimensions are marketed as healthy for people and the environment.

Contradictions in Health and Purity

The marketing of natural foods actually refers to health issues. Natural foods are projected as guaranteeing a long, healthy life since they are portrayed as foods that can prevent diseases and aging. In this concept lies the belief that natural foods are pure and free from harmful and unwholesome components. Pure food is perceived as natural, simple, unspoiled, and earthy, but at the same time it is expected to be germ-free, biologically cleansed, and scientifically aseptic (Mintz).

Natural foods in fact can include more harmful and naturally occurring toxic substances than highly processed food. The latter, thanks to modern developments in biotechnology, (i.e., genetic manipulation) can be more "healthy" and can more effectively prevent diseases than the so-called natural foods (Coveney and Santich). Advances in biotechnology have produced foods that are much safer from a hygienic perspective with the same tastes, appearances, textures, and colors as foods produced in the conventional way. This is the ultimate goal for the modern food industry, and these are the foods modern consumers actually demand and look for even though they are not always aware of it.

Quality Aspects of Natural Food

The concept of natural foods is closely related to quality aspects of food. Adulteration of food has been evident since the growth of towns and the development of food distribution in medieval Europe. Adulteration became more prevalent in the late nineteenth century, a period also characterized by the food scientists' obsession with purity (Tannahill). This obsession was mainly a reaction to the development of the food industry and the loss of control over local food production, but it can also be linked to the development of food science per se. New scientific methods enabled scientists to measure and detect impurities in food. Thus the quality aspects of food were seen under the microscope, that is, scientists could actually see with their own eyes the bacteria, microorganisms, and chemical residues in the food; therefore, food was determined chemically clean or not. However, as Sidney W. Mintz emphasizes, this state is not the same as a natural one. Nature is not chemically clean.

At the same time a new genre of books with advice and guidelines on how to shop for safe, unaltered foods was published widely in Europe. The consumers, mostly women, were told what foods they should be suspicious of, what foods to avoid, how to detect adulterations in food, and so on. In these books and in the general debate in the newspapers, the development of food industries and fast-growing global trade was much criticized. Foods produced in the consumer's own country and sold by local, well-known salespeople were recommended (Fjellström). The debate continued in the twenty-first century within the European Union (EU) despite the fact that most states in the EU have effective measures to control quality in food production and distribution. Consumers in Europe and the United States fear unnatural foods produced outside national and regional borders.

The Ideology about Nature and Food

The vision of the foods eaten by humankind in prehistory is one of natural and healthy foods from a nutritional point of view (Jenkens et al.). This diet is perceived as plant-based; high in vegetable protein, dietary fiber, and antioxidants; and low in saturated fat. It is considered the best alternative for modern people forced to eat the food of the supermarket, which is characterized as bottled, canned, refined, preserved, and frozen.

The ideology and attitudes toward the wild and natural landscape on the one hand and the domesticated and cultivated landscape on the other shifted back and forth throughout the first millennium B.C.E. (Montanari). For example, in Greek and the Roman cultures the untilled, uncultivated landscape or nature was seen as something negative, the opposite of the civilized and human world. Only unfortunate people obtained food in wild nature. Although the vegetarian diet, as opposed to the animal one, appealed more to both the Greeks and the Romans, it had to derive from land cultivated by people. During the seventh and eighth centuries C.E. in Europe the preference for nature and for the wild landscape as a source of a daily food supply became more dominant among the lay nobility, while domestically produced foods were preferred by groups within the church and in monasteries. In the early part of the second millennium C.E., the dominant ideas supported an effective medieval agricultural system. Foods obtained from the wild or naturally grown were regarded as unsuitable for human consumption (Montanari).

In eighteenth-century Scotland the physician George Cheney won a reputation for his ideas on health and illness. Natural foods were once again in favor. Cheney saw natural foods as those that remained unaltered by strange preparation techniques and ingredients, although he was not a vegetarian (Beardsworth and Keil). The development of organicism in mid-twentieth-century England preceded the ideology of natural foods (Matless). Important symbols within this movement were the earth and the soil. Values such as nature and wholeness were seen as the right kind of values for the survival of humankind, just as production methods and geographies of foods were emphasized as important for people's health. Organicists were critical of the global food production and distribution industries, thus their approach can be understood as a critique of modernity.

Natural Foods and a Critique of Modernity

The choice of natural foods could be interpreted in terms of Anthony Giddens's theories about people's calculations of risk elements in modern everyday life. Health issues, fear of diseases, and ultimately existential questions, such as the fear of death, are the underlying reasons that people began to examine what foods they could trust in a global society, where multinational food industries control food production and distribution and where experts have commandeered the knowledge of what is safe and healthy food. In his well-known culinary triangle Claude Lévi-Strauss emphasized that raw food was related to nature, while cooked food handled in vessels made by people had become culture. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the discourses surrounding food, especially so-called natural foods, involve new and different meanings and symbols. In some groups, particularly those who favor natural foods, nature and rural living are favored before culture and urban living (Lupton). Thus Lévi-Strauss's ideas about the the raw and cooked have changed place. Raw food rather than processed and cooked food is considered culture among some groups.

See also Green Revolution; Health Foods; Organic Agriculture; Organic Farming and Gardening; Organic Food.

Christina Maria Fjellström