[RealityVoid]

It's like it stems from some sort of self-hatred, as if we have this belief deep down that we are wrong or corrupted and whatever we are not MUST be good.

These naturalistic fallacies are certainly a strange, ilogical thing, but one at the core belief of _many_ people. I wonder if it's a western thing though and if we don't find it in other cultures as well.

[bawolff]

I can understand the logical leap that people took to get there:

Most processed food in western diets are unhealthy for you. Usually because the processing basically means very high in sugar, and relatively low nutritionally. It doesn't take much to go from that data point to a rule of thumb "natural = good".

Especially if you combine it with a mistrust of large corporations that you believe prioritize profits over ethics (not exactly a huge leap) - where you think that the stuff they make is bad, but "natural" things they didn't have a hand in cant be corrupted by them.

Real life is much more complex than that, but i can see the chain of logic people use.

[yongjik]

It's not really a western thing, it's just that "natural" stuff is much more expensive to produce in a modern industrial world, so --- naturally --- it's perceived as higher quality.

Centuries ago sugar was extremely expensive in Korea. Kings would use it as a medicine when they were sick.

[7952]

You can't base every decision you make on well researched science though. Everyone develops their own heuristics to make decisions. I think naturalness is just one of those. And within a limited set of choices it is probably a pretty good heuristic.

[qwertox]

I'm not really sure if it's that. If you look at the ingredient list of most of the products you buy, there's a ton of things in there which can cause allergies or other problems, if you consume too much of them.

It's ok to want something in its most natural form, but you have to make sure that the body is designed to deal with it. Like, don't eat raw potatoes or drink raw milk.

[lupire]

Naturalism is like Luddism and Conservativism. It is a preference for ideas that have been proven by survival over a long time, over new ideas that have less testing. Of course the principle can be misapplied.