So I’m at my neighborhood grocery store, doing my shopping for the week.
I’m kind of a health nut, so I go right for the stuff labeled “natural.”
What is carrageenan?
Alright, all-natural chicken breasts.
Wow, okay.
Corn syrup solids?
Maltodextrin?
Dextrose?
Got some natural cheese.
Natamycin?
What the hell is that?
I’m not alone in my confusion.
There have been more than 100 lawsuits filed since 2011 over this word, natural.
The magazine Consumer Reports has called on the FDA to ban the term.
Because, when it comes to food, natural doesn’t mean what you might think.
In one survey, 60% of Americans thought “natural” products were free from chemicals, artificial
ingredients and pesticides.
But that’s not the case at all.
At least, not according to the two government agencies who regulate our food supply...
the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, handles processed foods like cereal, chips,
shredded cheese.
Altogether, the FDA regulate 80% of our food supply.
And according to the FDA, there is no strict definition for what makes something “natural.”
Their website says that’s because most of what we eat bears little resemblance to anything
that comes from nature.
But this lack of clarity seems to just cause confusion among consumers.
The other government agency at play here is the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA.
It regulates eggs, meat and poultry.
And their definition is a little more specific.
It basically says you can’t add anything after an animal has been slaughtered and call
the thing you've made “natural.”
The label doesn’t tell you anything about how the animal was raised, what kind of food
it ate, or whether it was given hormones or antibiotics.
For eggs, the term is completely meaningless.
The fact that most of us don’t know what the “natural” label does and doesn’t
...this translates to big bucks for food companies.
The line here shows the sales of organic food products over the past ten years.
They’ve jumped from nearly $14 billion in 2005 to almost $40 billion in 2015.
If companies want to call something “organic,” regulators have to check to make sure it’s
mostly free of synthetic pesticides, chemical fertilizers and GMOs.
It’s an expensive and time-consuming process.
So they use the word “natural” to try to tap into a growing market without the hassle
and expense of actually going organic.
But that could be changing.
The FDA just wrapped up a public comment period where they asked whether they should create
a stricter definition for the term “natural.”
But even if the government defined the term “natural,” it wouldn’t mean the same
thing as “healthy.”
Lawsuits have argued that genetically-modified crops can’t be called “natural,” but
plenty of evidence shows they’re safe to eat.
And while some food additives may be dangerous, most of them are safe, at least according
to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The bigger risk when it comes to processed foods may not be their synthetic additives,
but the perfectly natural ingredients that get thrown in in surprisingly high amounts.
The CSPI says there are two things that cause more harm than all the food additives combined:
salt.
And sugar.