As I was doing our weekly grocery shopping last week, two thoughts hit me when it comes to food being labeled “All Natural”.  First, the term “natural” has become so misleading.  I’m sure Hostess could find a way to include the term “natural” on a box of Suzy-Qs by saying that it contains traces of flour.  The term “natural flavors” sometimes listed in ingredients can be anything BUT natural. 

Second, and more importantly, have we truly advanced as a species when “All Natural” is the exception?  Will the modified ingredients we ingest lengthen our life, shorten our life, or simply preserve our innards longer than normal upon our exit from this planet?  One trend I think has been very healthy as of late is the expansion of non-bleached flour for everything from breads to tortillas to rice.  Wonder Bread is no longer the loaf of choice for most parents and that can only be a good thing in the long run.

There’s no need to me to go into a plus/minus discussion of genetically modified foods and all the preservatives we ingest, yet what truly is legitimately natural anymore?  Even genetically unmodified fields have been known to have cross-pollination from the winds that carry GMO seeds to those fields.  While these modified seeds have good intentions, such as being resistant to certain types of insects, evolution has proven that it will just force those insects to evolve to an even more wicked mutation and the crops are then vulnerable again.

So while we might love those Spicy Habanero Doritos and look forward to licking the multi-hued residue off our encrusted fingers as if they were a Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip stick, the fact remains that maybe we should be wary of products that have ingredient lists that are longer than the length of an average cell phone (although that analogy might only work for 10 more years before we all have chips implanted into our ear canals that replace the common cell phone).  Look, don’t get me wrong.  I’m just as much a sucker for Hostess Caramel Ho Hos and Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream cookies but obviously only in moderation and with rare frequency. 

There are places where one can escape the normal preservative-filled grocery or convenience store – farmer’s markets and places like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.  Just this past month I was introduced to Trader Joe’s which just came into the area and I must say I’m already hooked.  They seem to be sort of like Whole Foods, only much cheaper since they cut out the middleman and have most of their items under their store name.  Even the beer is contracted out by brewers in North America and then packed under the Trader Joe’s name.  I like the fact that I can’t find items there with high fructose corn syrup – rather the things that are sweetened are done so with ingredients like evaporated cane sugar.  Yes, there’s still the sugar there but it’s not in a mutated state.  I like my ingredients to have as few “degrees of separation” from the initial product as possible.

Maybe we’ll come full circle and places like Trader Joe’s will be the norm again, where the common person has incentive to buy healthier things for their body.  That’s always been the rap against Whole Foods, even though they’re not to blame.  What they sell in their stores is mostly really good for you, but unless you’re in a higher income bracket, it’s not feasible to do your weekly shopping there.  Eating healthy is not easy, nor is it cheap for certain items.  Trader Joe’s, while not as extensive as Whole Foods, is a good step in the right direction in terms of making good things available at regular to below-average prices.

Will we ever see the day where people will shun the convenience of a 7-11 Slurpee and hot dog in favor of a Trader Joe’s hot dog that isn’t filled with nitrates?  Probably not until places like that are as common as the CVS and Eckerds and Walgreen’s store you see on every block.  I’d love to see the day where, in most suburban strip malls, we replaced at least 70% of those hair/nail/tanning salons with express stores that specialize in healthy convenience foods.  But we all know that’s simply a pipe dream.  We want our food, we want it now and to hell with the consequences.  Let’s just hope that the residents of China and India get as fat as we do in the current century so we at least won’t have them sneak up on us as they silently take over as the dominant countries of the 21^st century.  At least they’ll be fat like us.