"Natural" or "Artificial" Ingredients Are Meaningless

Yes. Meaningless.

Are you one of the people who philosophically dislike "artificial (synthetic) ingredients" in things that you eat?

If you are, you have to read this post.

When I discuss food, diet, and nutritional products with friends, sometimes we would come across topics regarding whether something is "all-natural".

*** Part 1: Everything is chemical

Please read and remember this...

In a sense, there is no difference between "natural" and "artificial" ("synthetic") ingredients, because they are all chemicals.

I repeat: everything is chemical.

Perhaps you may ask who I am to say this, but you really don't have to ask, just go and do a bit of research.

Everything is chemical. Our world is made of chemicals. The orange you just ate was made of chemicals. The rice you just ate was made of chemicals. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the ground we step on, they're all made of chemicals. Heck, even our whole bodies are a mass of chemicals.

When you pour a glass of water, would you want to call it "water"? Or "H₂O"?

When you hear the vitamin called "vitamin C", would you want to call it "vitamin C"? Or "Ascorbic Acid" (C₆H₈O₆)?

What about vitamin K? When you eat your vegetables, one of the vitamins you take in is vitamin K. So is this vitamin K "all-natural" if you take it from vegetables? Or is it any more natural than its chemical name "2-methyl-3-phytyl-1,4-naphthoquinone"?

Estrogen? Estrogen is something that is produced in our bodies. It's definitely "all-natural" right? Since our bodies produce it! But does it sound any less natural (or more natural for that matter) with its chemical name of "(8S,9S,13S,14S,17S)-13-methyl-6,7,8,9,11,12,14,15,16,17-decahydrocyclopenta[a]phenanthrene-3,17-diol"?

I hope I've made myself clear enough, so clear that you can't help it but to understand what I'm talking about: everything is chemical. We use nutrients in their chemical forms, regardless of their sources.

*** Part 2: The chemical structures could be different

But hey... When I first made this point above, I said "in a sense", right? That's important. Because this way of looking at nutrients (that everything is chemical) is the basic and fundamental perspective that we all have to know and understand. But as I just said, this is the basic perspective. There are other aspects we have to consider as well when we talk about "natural" and "synthetic" nutrients.

One of the "other aspects" is the chemical structure of the nutrients.

If we look at it this way, then there is a difference between some (not all) "natural" and "synthetic" nutrients. For example, vitamin E. The natural form of vitamin E is "D-alpha tocopherol", while the synthetic form of it is "DL-alpha tocopherol". It doesn't take a genius to notice the extra "L" in the latter one. Why would such a difference exist? This is because the way the molecules are constructed naturally (by mother nature) and synthetically (in laboratories) are different. Yes, they are all chemicals, but they have different structures, thus their effects on our bodies are different.

In the case of this vitamin E, the "D" part of it is the one that can benefit us, while the "L" part is pretty much useless. So if a nutritional product has the synthetic form of vitamin E in it, you only get half of the total amount of vitamin E per serving, because the other half is useless. It's not dangerous or fatal (otherwise it would be banned already), but it's just useless.

So, in this sense, "natural" and "synthetic" have a difference. But this isn't everything about it.

*** Part 3: Nutrients do not work alone

Some people have a philosophical preference for obtaining nutrients from the entirety of a food (eating the whole thing so that everything a food has to offer is obtained) over obtaining nutrients from supplements that only include exactly what is needed. Actually, they have a point.

I'll take oranges for example. We all know oranges can give us vitamin C. And vitamin C, for the convenience of communication, is also referred to as "ascorbic acid". However, how many people know that ascorbic acid alone isn't really vitamin C? Not many. But it's a fact that if a nutritional product that provides vitamin C only has ascorbic acid in it, it's not really useful.

In an orange, there are ascorbic acid, bioflavonoids, co-factors, and many "other things" that come with it. Together, they're called "vitamin C". Ascorbic acid alone isn't vitamin C. Do we need all those "other things"? Oh yes! Very much!

Understand that nutrients do not work alone. They have to work together to have synergistic effects. This is one of the crucial criteria a nutritional product has to meet in order to be considered good. (There are other criteria, but they'll not be covered in this post.) Nutritional products that do not have the right nutrients (at the right amount for each) to allow the nutrients to complement each other aren't really giving you the benefits that you pay for.

This is another difference between "natural" and "synthetic" nutrients, and is another aspect that we have to look at when choosing nutritional products. A natural source is more likely to provide a comprehensive range of nutrients than a synthetic source.

However, there is something we need to understand.

Back to oranges. I give you an orange, and you eat it. You will have obtained everything the orange naturally has to offer, right? But what if I extract everything (every nutrient) found in that orange of yours and put them into a tablet? Do you think you're getting the same thing?

Some people say no, and some say yes. Actually, both are right. The difference is the fiber in the orange. If you eat the orange, you obtain fiber. If you only take the tablet, you don't have fiber. So if you count the fiber in, then eating an orange and taking the tablet (with every nutrient in the orange) do have a difference. If you don't count the fiber in, then you're getting the same thing nutrient-wise!

It all comes down to this key question: does a nutritional product include every nutrient needed to have synergistic effects?

When we eat the whole thing of a food, we obtain a more complete range of nutrients that, together, can actually work. So the challenge for nutritional products is that do they include all those nutrients in their formula? Do they actually put those nutrients in? Or do they only give you exactly what the product name says it gives? This is the key question you should ask, instead of (just) asking whether the ingredients are "natural" or "synthetic".

*** Part 4: Synthetically derived nutrients are NOT always inferior

The last thing I want to talk about in this post is another aspect of nutritional products that we have to understand. It is true that in some cases, naturally formed nutrients are better than synthetically formed ones, and in some other cases, both naturally and synthetically formed nutrients are as effective. However, you have to know that in some rare cases, synthetically formed nutrients are actually better than (and more practical than) naturally formed ones.

For example, folic acid.

Folic acid is usually synthetic, and it's not without reasons. Synthetically derived folic acid is more easily absorbed by our bodies than its natural counterpart. This is because natural food folates have to go through multiple conversion processes in order to become folic acid that our bodies can absorb and use.

In this sense, sometimes synthetically derived nutrients can have better quality and stability than naturally derived ones. What matters is how effective they are in carrying out their jobs and how safe they are. This will have to depend on how many research and tests the manufacturer of a nutritional product have done in order to test the potency, purity, and safety levels of the synthetically derived nutrients. Choose products that have gone through all of these tests.

Another thing is that not all nutrients are widely available in nature. Some nutrients are more difficult to obtain in large amounts from natural food, and thus it is not practical to go natural for those kinds of nutrients. As long as the synthetic version of those nutrients are safe (this is the priority) and equally effective, it is completely fine to go synthetic.

Come on, if a nutrient is rare, don't tell me you want to eat a few kilograms of something every day just to obtain that small (and insufficient) amount of it. It's simply not practical.

Alright. I must end this now.

If you've been with me throughout the entire post, I thank you for reading this. (Also give yourself a round of applause.) If this is the first time you're exposed to this kind of information, perhaps you might feel overwhelmed. But all these things are really important to know, so now you've learned quite some things.

Of course, you might question my credibility. So I must tell you, almost everything you read in this post isn't said by me. They're what the scientists have said, and they're what available on the Internet. After all, I'm not a genius. I'm just a person with common sense, like other people.

However, notice that I didn't cite any links, right? This is because most of my sources also recommend some kind of products, and I don't feel like advertising any product for free. So... yeah. I didn't cite anything.

So that's it. Thank you for reading.