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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsShouldn't Natural Foods Actually be Natural?
Years ago the delightfully-naughty movie star, Mae West, said: "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."
Less delightful are some of the purity claims of such food manufacturing giants as PepsiCo, which has long marketed a line of its Frito-Lay snack foods as "Simply Natural." Natural? Anyone who's even looked at one of the company's strangely-puffed, caterpillaresque, cheese-powdered, "Cheetos" would have a hard time believing nature had anything to do with the concoctions. Sure enough, PepsiCo has quietly dropped the volatile "natural" claim from its snack packages, rebranding them with just the word "Simply."
The multibillion-dollar food maker says the shift is merely a routine adjustment of its marketing scheme but it comes only after consumer groups have taken Pepsi, Campbell Soup, and other manufactures to court in the past couple of years, successfully challenging their use of the "natural" phrase as deceptive hype.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/02/16-1
Less delightful are some of the purity claims of such food manufacturing giants as PepsiCo, which has long marketed a line of its Frito-Lay snack foods as "Simply Natural." Natural? Anyone who's even looked at one of the company's strangely-puffed, caterpillaresque, cheese-powdered, "Cheetos" would have a hard time believing nature had anything to do with the concoctions. Sure enough, PepsiCo has quietly dropped the volatile "natural" claim from its snack packages, rebranding them with just the word "Simply."
The multibillion-dollar food maker says the shift is merely a routine adjustment of its marketing scheme but it comes only after consumer groups have taken Pepsi, Campbell Soup, and other manufactures to court in the past couple of years, successfully challenging their use of the "natural" phrase as deceptive hype.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/02/16-1
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Shouldn't Natural Foods Actually be Natural? (Original Post)
SecularMotion
Feb 2014
OP
yes, but processed food companies coopted the term, now it's used to make people feel better
Liberal_in_LA
Feb 2014
#3
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)1. The "natural" in "natural foods" has no legal definition.
So when seen on labeling, it has no specific meaning. Organic, on the other hand, is defined by law and does mean something. For instance, a food labeled Organic can have no more than 8% GMO food in a product. It can not be grown closer to a GMO crop than 100 feet. It can not used chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
longship
(40,416 posts)2. "Natural" is a meaningless marketing term.
Anybody who claims otherwise has been hoodwinked, or is a marketer.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)3. yes, but processed food companies coopted the term, now it's used to make people feel better
About the junk food they are eating
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)4. Food terminology is now nothing but a bad marketing joke.
What's bizarre, is how many people buy into it, almost religiously.