Today’s consumers are increasingly aware of the importance of sound nutrition and its relationship to health, yet many believe that eating nutritiously means making sacrifices in costs or quality. The media contributes to this belief by overloading people with information about fast foods and specific foods, emphasizing preparation time rather than nutritional value. In addition, malnutrition, the social pressures to achieve a distorted body image, and obesity remain significant problems for youth, adolescents, and adults across all socioeconomic groups in the world today (Leddy, 2006).
While our hunter-gatherer and even our agricultural ancestors enjoyed natural “whole” foods, the diets of 20th-century human beings have been very different from those diets of long ago. Even 100 years ago, much of our food was unprocessed and unrefined. It was grown on clean, living (often virgin) soil with fresh air and pure water. No preservatives, pesticides, chemicals, or additives were used and the soil was rich with nutrients (Trivieri & Anderson, 2002). Today, that is not the case for the food eaten by most Americans. As a result, there has been a tremendous increase in the use of “natural products” to support diets that are lacking in the nutrients essential to optimal health and healing.
Natural Products
Natural products, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), are a large and diverse group of substances from many different sources. Bacteria, fungi, marine organisms, and plants produce them. The term also includes extracts from these producers and isolated compounds derived from those extracts. Many natural products are marketed and available to consumers as dietary supplements (often called nutraceuticals), probiotics, herbs, and botanicals (NCCIH, 2016a).