Are we committing a naturalistic fallacy?

BERTRAND is an organic complete-nutrition powder. One package contains all the nutrients currently recommended by nutritional science for an average adult. All the nutrients in BERTRAND come from natural sources such as grains, oilseeds, almonds, nuts, fruit powders, and many more.

Our focus on the natural origins of nutrients means that we currently face the accusation almost every day that we are committing a kind of naturalistic fallacy. This accusation is usually accompanied by the claim that we must be aware of this, yet are knowingly misleading our customers by focusing on naturalness and organic certification to suggest a quality advantage that does not exist. The assumption held by proponents of this position is that a complete-nutrition powder providing nutrients synthetically is cheaper and at least as good as, or better than, an organic product—and that organic certification is a fraud.

The situation

There are currently two competing models for complete-nutrition powders, one of which is BERTRAND. On the one hand, there is our product: a composition of various natural ingredients whose combined nutritional profile meets current nutritional recommendations. On the other hand—and this is almost exclusively the case—there are suppliers who provide an energy-rich nutritional powder with a synthetic blend of vitamins and minerals added to it. They advertise this type of nutritional powder with a certain degree of pride, claiming that it contains only the recommended nutrients and absolutely nothing more. Anything added beyond scientific recommendations is unnecessary and, even worse, unscientific.

Anyone who believes that naturalness or organic certification makes a difference is committing the naturalistic fallacy.

Our position

We know that the equations “synthetic = unhealthy” and “genetic engineering = bad” are not true. We understand that synthetic ingredients and genetically modified organisms are used in the food industry. Genetic engineering is often necessary and useful, as are synthetic ingredients. However, in our assessment, the synthetic meal replacement powders available on the market use these ingredients to make the product cheaper, not better.

I will now try to clarify our view using a historical thought experiment: If synthetic nutritional powders had been developed in 1941 rather than today, based on the nutritional recommendations current at that time, the result would have been a product that led to malnutrition because some essential vitamins would simply have been missing. Fortunately, the authors at the time were not so naïve as to believe that research into human nutrition was complete; instead, they already suspected that further knowledge about vitamins and minerals would be gained, which would lead to the recommendations being revised. This was also noted in the text:

The comitee realizes that the values proposed will need to be revised from time to time as more knowledge of nutritive requirements become available.
http://www.nap.edu/read/13286/chapter/1

These powders were developed today, and their vitamin mix is based on a more recent RDI. But even in this RDI, the authors note:

The DRIs will continue to evolve as better information becomes available. When interpreting the results of assessments of individuals or groups, it is appropriate to consider possible limitations in the information base that was used to generate the relevant DRIs. http://www.nap.edu/read/9956/chapter/5#27

So is it really far-fetched to assume that developments will continue over the next few years and that new essential vitamins will be discovered which are not included in today’s synthetic products—unless they happen to be present in oats or rice protein?
The synthetic powders will certainly be improved later, but the period from today until the discovery of the new essential nutrients would be spent consuming a 100% synthetic diet without those essential nutrients.
So anyone who wants to nourish themselves with greater certainty while getting all the essential nutrients is much better served by a mix of natural ingredients than by a powder to which only the vitamins we know about today have been added. Our approach is therefore neither pseudoscientific nor based on a naturalistic fallacy; rather, it follows the recommendations of the authors of the RDI, who themselves acknowledge that further developments will take place.

The accusations we sometimes have to listen to suggest that there is some kind of obligation to use synthetic ingredients or genetic engineering.
We certainly don’t see it that way!