This is not a stupid question, no questions are stupid... In my experience, natural means, this is hard to explain, here is an example; if a package says all natural it means that they use real ingredients along with fake ones, not always but mostly. Like, if a package says it is all natural dried cranberries then they mean they used real cranberries. It is sort of ridiculous b/c a lot of foods are natural, why wouldn't they be? But the companies are trying to trick you into thinking their product is good for you when in actuality they are not. Hydrogenated oils, and high fructose corn syrup... yucky stuff like that exists in these all natural foods, no one said that the yucky stuff wasn't natural.
Whole food in my opinion, which I have to say all of this is just opinion, means that the foods you are comsuming haven't changed form in anyway. A tomato is still a tomato, whole wheat is not split, meaning it still has most of its nutrients. I hope this makes sense. And last but not least organic means, if it has a USDA sticker on it, that it was grown w/o the use of pesticides or other harmful chemicals. Another good one to lookout for is NON-GMO (not genetically modified).
Well there you have it my opinion of what natural/whole/organic means, I hope I was helpful. Good luck shopping I am glad you are on our side, the healthy side. It's a shame that we have to fight to be healthy! Maybe someday we won't have to, I won't hold my breath.
@

What is Natural...the Miessence definition of Natural is Existing in, or formed by nature: not artificial....
The Cosmetic industry definition of Natural is Any ingredient "derived from" a natural substance....
With so many "natural' products on the market, how can you tell the real thing? We often see long chemical names followed by the phrase "derived form coconut oil". For example, to create cocoamide DEA from cocunt oil requires the use of teh carcinogenic synthetic chemical diethanolamine (DEA). It is therefore no longer natural and to insinuate it is a natural substance by adding the phrase "from coconut oil" is at best misleading. Just because vodka can be derived from potatoes, doesnt mean its good for you!
What is organic... The Miessence definition or organic is Grwon, cultivated and processed without the use of synthetic chemicals such as insecticides, herbicides and fumigants.
The cosmetic industry definition of organic is any compound containing carbon.
This is the organic chemistry definition. Carbon is found in anything that ever lived. So, by using this definition of organic we could say that the toxic petrochemical preservative methyl paraben is "organic" because it was formed by leaves that rotted over thousands of years to become the crude oil used to make this toxic preservative.
So then What is Certified Organic...?
Certified organic is an independent third party guarantee of an "organic" claim. Certified organic products must comply with stringent international standards that cover all aspects of the processing chain to ensure that the organic intergrity is maintained from seed, growing, harvesting, storage, transporting and processing to the finished product.

I hope this information wasnt too much for you, but to be sure you are getting a product that is free of chemical and toxic substances I advise you to only choose certified organic.

Best of luck on your journey!
Rosie