“Natural Flavors”, as seen on the list of ingredients on food packaging, are not necessarily really natural if they are used out of context. From the article:

“The term natural refers to how it was made, not what it is. Natural flavorings and artificial flavorings are chemically identical. You can isolate 15 different chemical compounds from different “natural” sources — tree bark, yeast, lawn clippings — and blend them to create a flavoring that tastes like strawberry. But it will have no strawberry in it, and none of the antioxidants, vitamins, fiber, or minerals. It’s just the experience of strawberry.”

“Man-made flavors mimic flavors found in nature, chemically printing desire onto food that we normally wouldn’t eat and fooling our bodies into believing we’re getting nutrition that isn’t there. This, Schatzker argues, is what’s really driving the obesity epidemic.”

This is an interesting thesis and a point worth understanding, although most American’s are well aware that they should be eating less junk and more fruit and vegetables. And a decline in personal discipline and sedentary lifestyles are to blame as well. But, as Schatzker argues, it might be easier to eat a healthy diet if we didn’t distort our sense of taste by eating food that tastes like something it isn’t.