What would you consider food: chewing gum or an apple growing on a tree? Halt before choosing the latter. The eu thinks otherwise!

The bizarre food classification is part of the eu' s comments sent to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint body of the un Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organization that sets food standards. Recommendations of Codex are often used to settle international trade disputes. "(Chewing gum) should be considered as food even if only a part...is actually ingested by the consumer,' the eu suggests. But it adds that certain types of chewing gum might be considered as medicine.

Any tasty plant ripening in the ground before harvest is not food, the eu believes. But mineral water definitely is.