What are natural ingredients, and do they matter?

(These sure seem to be natural ingredients...)

The title of this article poses a couple of hypothetical (rhetorical, to some) questions about the nature of natural ingredients. Perhaps the real underlying question behind the former - "what are natural ingredients?" - is "what does the word 'natural' mean?"

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The definition of natural is not an entirely obvious one. In standard use, or on the shelves of grocery stores, natural refers to anything that does not exist solely because of human ingenuity. The standard definition is broken, however. If you consider that bananas and corn only exist in their current forms because of thousands of years of human cultivation, you realize that almost everything on the shelves does not fit our popular definition of natural. The next definition you might consider is the technical one. Anything that exists, is natural; anything that does not is unnatural. This is also, a definition which I am particularly biased towards; nevertheless, I intend to reveal it's shortcomings. This use of natural is fairly weak in describing anything, since it describes... well... everything.

(A whole bunch of crap that I keep on hand for using as natural ingredients.)

Where does this lack of a strong definition leave us, then? Perhaps, somewhere in the middle. For the sake of simplicity, could we agree that there could be a gradation of how natural something appears to be, based on how much human interference is required to create it? For example, a watermelon would be more natural than watermelon flavored syrup. Despite that the watermelon was cultivated, and genetically modified by humans, the syrup may not have flavoring from a real watermelon in it at all. Perhaps looking at the unclear gradation of "naturality" can add some conciseness to the idea that we're trying to think of, when asking these questions? To recap of what a natural ingredient is; the more processing or tampering that is involved with the original product, the less natural it is.

But does it matter? Well... yes and no.

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The reason why it matters is because authentic flavors should not be replaced with artificial flavors, wherever possible. While, it is true that cost is always a concern, I believe that as long as the cost is reasonable, then the authentic flavors should always be more favorable than the artificial ones. To return to the example above, with the watermelon versus the watermelon syrup, I would always prefer to get the flavor of watermelon by pureeing real watermelon, rather than by using a syrup that is flavored like watermelon. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that if the syrup were infused with real watermelon, it would not change my position; I would still prefer to puree my own watermelon in order to obtain that flavor.

(This is what the bitters making process is like. Is it TOO processed? What is the point where too much human ingenuity would be considered less natural?)

I also mentioned that part of the debate doesn't matter, though. It doesn't matter because, well, the importance of natural versus artificial is a cultural construct. The true definition of natural still stands, despite my wishes to find a compromise. Natural is natural, and if it can exist, it's natural. Similarly, all foods are organic because they all contain carbon. For this reason, using the labels of natural, or organic, are redundant and nonsensical. 

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A conclusion is needed, however, and my opinion is as stands: when something is said to be flavored with watermelon, then it should contain watermelon. If on the other hand, it contains watermelon syrup, then it should specifically be advertised as containing watermelon syrup; anything else, I believe, is dishonest and hence false advertising. At the same time, I would not want to restrict products by having them label something as being artificially flavored, or confounding the situation by urging them to label their products as natural, or organic. Specificity and accuracy, are much more important.