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Abstract
Is there a « natural » food ? The answer is not easy because the antithesis between « natural » foods and « elaborated » foods is artificial. To recommand either of these kinds of foods is not objective. Each of them involves risks for the consumer. As a matter of fact, « natural » and « toxic » are on a par in many well-known cases like fungi, mais and aflatoxins, rapeseed and goitrigen substances, some leguminous plants and cyanogen substances or enzymes inhibitors, beans and favism, immature aubergine and sprouted potatoes and solanin, etc... The treatment of natural foods by technics such as smoking and curing, involves also some risks. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons isolated from fish and meat smoked with a wood-fire like « in the old time », such as different nitrosamines found In most of saltings, are carcinogen factors. However, it would be ridiculous to condamn these technics. The danger arising from their renunciation would be much greater. In the same way, it would be extremely hazardous of being inattentive during treatments of food.