For a while now I have been receiving emails at the rate of two or three per week that include tips on choosing the best foods to eat a healthy diet. When I added my email to this service, I had the idea that more information about the foods I should or should not eat would make me a better informed and, hopefully, healthier consumer. Instead, many of the online articles have left me amazed, confused and, in some cases, caused me to lose my appetite all together.

Many of the articles have been aimed at exposing the truth regarding how muchfat, sugar or sodium foods contain, or what unappetizing particles, including bug parts, chemicals, pesticides and other additives might be lurking in them.

Some articles focused on tips for choosing the best foods to boost energy, improve brain function, have a better complexion and live longer. Others tell how to choose the lesser of the evils if you are going to indulge in some of the “bad” foods.

You might imagine just how confusing all this information can get. Often one article contradicts another.

One thing that has been particularly eye-opening isthe way in which food packaging labels can be misleading. You just can’t take what you read at face value. For instance, one of the most miss-used phrases in product packaging is the term “all-natural.” Even though “all-natural” sounds good, apparently no one in the food industry is regulating the use of these words. Even when ingredients are made from genetically modified crops (which some say is up to 70 percent of the processed foods on store shelves) the package very often is printed with the words “all-natural.”

The cereal aisle is one place these where consumers are particularly bombarded with messages making claims to be “natural” and “healthy.” When analyzed by an “organic watchdog group,” many were found to contain unhealthy contaminates such as pesticides, fumigation chemical residue, and genetically-modified ingredients. The bottom line is that foods labeled as “natural” most likely are not.

The words don’t mean anything. They are there, apparently, to sway healthconscious consumers to grab that package over another simply because it sounds healthier.

So what’s a health-conscious consumer to do? Reading ingredients labels carefully is a place to start, but short of becoming a chemist who understands what all those big words really mean, it is still nearly impossible to understand what is in the foods we eat. Until the Food and Drug Administration requires standards regarding the use of words like “healthy” and “all-natural” on food packages, it is best to disregard these words as having any significant meaning.

Just attempting to wade through all the information and make decisions about eating healthyleaves me with a headache. This could be caused from thinking so hard or possibly from all that monosodium glutamate I have ingested from my food.

The only thing I know for sure is that it would be nice to eat from that big garden on the mountain again, like I did as a kid. That was about as “all-natural” as you can get.

Annette Rowe is a freelance writer from rural Gentry and a speech-language pathologistat Siloam Springs High School. She may be reached by email at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 6 on 11/07/2012