Your busy schedule has about as much give as an overbooked flight at Thanksgiving. So you rely on processed foods every now and then (maybe even airplane snacks). We know that. But if you are thinking the way to keep your diet more wholesome than Mister Rogers' Neighborhood reruns is to focus on natural additives instead of artificial ones, you must think the food companies only want you to stay healthy.

"Natural" flavorings do come from spices, fruit or fruit juices, vegetables, edible yeast, herbs, bark, roots, and other natural sources.

But natural doesn't always mean safe. (Cyanide is natural!) Some FDA-banned food additives come from "natural" plant sources. And some, such as Red Dye #5 and Red Dye #6, cause a lot of angry intestines. In fact, "natural" doesn't mean much of anything, because it is not a regulated food term (so it has no legal definition). And it definitely doesn't mean "organic." That moniker refers to foods that have been produced organically (the farms don't use chemical fertilizers or chemical insecticides, nor do they use antibiotics or growth hormones), and there are clear rules about what different organic wording means.

So do you need to ban processed food from your lips? That's about as easy as seeing zero reality TV shows while channel surfing. But you should eat as few unnecessary ingredients or highly processed, nutrition-poor foods as you can. You know where we're going here: That means opting for fresh whole foods that look like they did when they were harvested.