The Trouble With Labels Like 'Natural' and 'All Natural'
When you see the words “natural” or “all natural” on a food label do you think, no artificial ingredients? No GMOs? No pesticides? No antibiotics? In a recent survey (PDF) of more than 1,000 adults from the Consumer Reports National Research Center, nearly two-thirds of people did. Truth is, on processed foods, the“natural” word doesn’t have to mean any of those things. In fact, the term is essentially meaningless. That’s why we are gathering signatures for a petition to send to the Food and Drug Administration, telling the agency that they must fix the natural label.
In the meantime, we want to call your attention to the ways that manufacturers of processed foods use terms like “natural” and “all natural” on their packaging—and explain exactly why these products don’t come close to meeting consumer expectations of these claims.
The 25 products we've identified below contain some ingredients that you probably don’t think of as natural. We bought these products in December 2015 and January 2016 in Massachusetts and New York. We contacted each company with specific questions about the ingredients or how they were produced or processed. If we didn’t receive a response, we followed up with at least one phone call and two email messages. We are not asserting that any of the products violate any laws, but we do believe that the government’s lack of meaningful standards allows for misleading uses of the natural label.
We'll be tweeting about this issue all through February. Follow us on Twitter at @ConsumerReports using the hashtag #FixNatural.
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