As a part of my day-to-day job, a lot of questions have been popping up lately on foods with a natural claim, so I wanted to address it here.  Without a doubt, natural foods – as well as organic foods – are a hot trend these days. 

But the question is what are natural foods?  It seems intuitive and obvious, right?  When you hear the word natural, visions of wheat fields and fresh grown veggies at a farm down the street are in your mind.  But sometimes, you see a natural claim on foods that appear to be processed.  All foods are grown or raised, so where do you draw the line on what is or isn’t natural?

Both the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) – the agencies that regulate food and food labels – have fairly loose definitions of this term, with FDA having guidelines but no official policy.  FDA doesn’t object to a natural claim on a food as long as there are no added colors, artificial flavors or synthetic substances.  USDA would add that a natural product can only be minimally processed (roasting, freezing, smoking, drying and fermenting of meats and poultry are allowed).  Because the definitions are loose, food companies interpret the definition of natural, and therefore the message isn’t necessarily consistent across all brands and foods. 

The interesting thing about the questions I’ve been getting is that they aren’t related to how natural foods are defined.  The point I’m hearing is that natural claims should be a primary decision factor in purchasing foods. 

As a health professional, I’m not opposed to people choosing foods with natural claims.  What I’m opposed to is the choosing of natural foods at the expense of all other nutritional contents of the food.  In reality, foods may carry a natural claim, but be high in saturated fat, sodium and/or sugar and lack positive nutrients like fiber, calcium, vitamin D and/or omega-3 fats. 

Natural is not necessarily synonymous with healthy or nutritious. Simply using the natural claim as a marker does not guarantee a shopping cart filled with vegetables and fruits, lean means, whole grains, low-fat dairy and vegetarian protein sources.  Choosing natural foods works, but only if combined with the nutrition quality of the food.

Visit www.nuval.com to see scores on natural, organic and conventional foods.

If you type the words “health benefits of olive oil” into a Google search, you get 353,000 hits.  “Health benefits of canola oil” gets you 14,300, soybean oil 3,010, and rapeseed oil 1,780.  At a subtle glance (remember, we live in a world where 140 character Tweets are now the preferred method of communication) it would suggest that olive oil is the healthiest, is the best choice.  All the media hype about the “Mediterranean Diet” only adds to this notion, as olive oil is produced in the heart of the Mediterranean countries.

But is it true?

If you look in detail at the types of fat that make up each of these oils, you’ll find a different story.

Canola oil has 11 times more omega-3 fats (think good fats, protective against heart disease) and soybean oil 8.5 times more than olive oil.  Even corn oil has more omega-3 fats than olive oil. Then there’s saturated fat; Olive oil contains more saturated fat (think bad fat, can increase your risk of heart disease) than corn oil and nearly double the sat fat in canola oil.  The one area where olive oil is better than the rest is when it comes to trans fat, having the lowest level of the oils, but only if you are using extra virgin or virgin olive oil.  Regular or pure olive oil does have trans fat.

The fact that oils even have trans fat is likely a surprise to you.  Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with an oil expert at Cargill, a large refiner of edible oils, who explained it to me.  As it turns out, during the refining of edible oils, steam is injected into the oil at a temp of 550 degrees.  The purpose is to strip away off flavors or colors as well as any pesticides that might remain in the oil.  But a side impact is that exposing the oil to this high heat creates some trans fat.  Who knew, right?

The bottom line?  Based on the fat profile of the various oils, canola oil (also known as rapeseed oil as this is the seed canola oil comes from) is the better choice.  So is soybean oil.  Corn is about the same as olive (unless you use extra virgin or virgin olive oil).

Visit www.nuval.com to see a system that busted the myth about oils over two years ago.