Here’s an unintentionally humorous article from WebMD: Foods With Something Extra - Functional, enriched, and fortified foods offer health bonuses. I had my first good laugh (groan might be more appropriate) with the opening paragraph. It didn’t get better as the article continued.

Fooling Mother Nature can sometimes be a good thing. In the world of nutrition, improving upon nature has proven to offer health benefits. Through the power of technology, we can add nutrients where they are not found naturally.

Now, are we talking about fooling Mother Nature like we did when we created trans fats or have we successfully pulled it off and I’m forgetting? Frankly, I hope that one day we get over our arrogance of thinking we can improve on Mother Nature, but I’m doubtful. If you eat real, whole, unprocessed foods, what need have you of fortification? They call fortified foods “functional”; but what is more functional than a salad full of spinach, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, walnuts, herbs, and olive oil?

The reality is that fortified foods are only needed because people refuse to eat foods that are naturally healthful. If people would put down the bread and pick up an apple, they’d get more than their fair share of vitamins and minerals. Perhaps the fact that certain foods require fortification for their nutrients to be properly assimilated, as they point out with milk and calcium (vitamin D fortified), should teach us that Mother Nature never intended those foods to be consumed by humans for that purpose. Perhaps the human body isn’t designed for grain consumption and hence the needed nutrients aren’t built-in. It’s just a thought.

And health care professionals have always relied on our nations’ food supply to provide us with all the nutrients we need for good health. The only exceptions are during pregnancy, breastfeeding, and infancy, when it is virtually impossible to meet nutritional needs with food alone.

Can someone please dial our ancestors ten thousand or so years ago and ask them how they coped with getting through pregnancy and infancy without fortified grains and “functional foods”? It’s bloody amazing that the human lineage has survived for the past few million years without agribusiness to put extra vitamins in our foods. Perhaps, and this is just another theory of mine, if people were eating whole foods, there wouldn’t be issues with getting enough nutrition from foods. Mind blowing, yes?

Many nutritionists think we have crossed the line with some of the enriched, fortified, and functional foods. They maintain that fortification is no longer a public-health strategy, but an excuse to make junk food appear nutritious.

I’d like to meet these nutritionists because the average nutritionist is recommending copious whole grain consumption, which as they mention earlier in the article, are federally mandated to be fortified with B-vitamins and iron.

So yes, I guffaw at the term “Functional Foods”. Functional foods are all throughout the grocery store. Check out the meat department and the produce department. You’ll also find some in the egg aisle and the nuts section. In fact, these same functional foods existed long before the term “Functional Foods” and I think Mother Nature should sue for copyright infringement. These are the foods that we are genetically built to consume and amazingly they don’t require a “fortified with” label. So get out there in the perimeter of your grocery store and get some Functional Foods. And if you’ve been paying attention, you know I’m not talking about the unnatural Frankenfoods in the center aisles.

Also, I have my doubts that humanity will ever best Mother Nature when it comes to food. It’s wise to just work with the bounty we’ve been given.


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