But it's also reasonable to trust our intuition that food is generally better - i.e., more easily digested and more nutritionally complete - the closer it is to its natural form.
In the linked article, the supplement in question was was far from natural; it was highly refined and concentrated.
So the cause of the damage in this case was not from consuming a natural product, but from taking a highly _unnatural_ product.
If he'd just had ordinary green tea (i.e., dried tea leaves steeped in water) once or twice a day, as millions of people have done for many generations, this would not have happened.
I think the consultant in question had a bit of a thing about people consuming large quantities of "natural" products and being surprised that this could make them quite ill and indulged in a bit of a rant.
There actually is a tree which will kill you if you hang around it for long enough (the manchineel tree), but to be fair I wouldn't expect to find it in somebody's garden.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/whatever-you-do-do-not...
I think, many do not, at all.
> So the cause of the damage in this case was not from consuming a natural product, but from taking a highly _unnatural_ product.
There is a big difference in your definition of natural and what is marketed as natural.