ral” are words that consumers are very fa- miliar with if they shop at almost any grocery store in the country. You see them on signs at produce displays promoting fruits and vegetables, in flyers and leaflets with reci- pes and cooking tips, and highlighted on many prepackaged products. The word “organic” is a term that has been strictly defined by law in the U.S. since govern- ment legislation was passed in 1991, but “natural” is much harder to nail down. Since natural foods (which used to be more accurately known as “health” foods) came into mainstream acceptance in the mid-1990’s, the appropriation and misuse of the word “natural” by various oppos- ing marketing factions has muddied the word’s original meaning, robbing it of specificity and informational usefulness. How can consumers understand what it is they’re being sold when the words used to describe it don’t give any real informa- tion any more? In this battle between independent
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28 Triad
health food producers, who are simply trying to put out their unique, high-qual- ity products, and the larger conventional agribusiness companies, who are much more invested in taking advantage of the increasing profitability of a rapidly expanding food category, we consum- ers lose out. Natural foods shoppers, particularly, are at a disadvantage in the conventional grocery store environment because most of us continue to oper- ate on older assumptions of what these over-used words stand for. One problem is that “natural foods” is a much less pre- cise way to describe food that is healthy and lacking in preservatives, fillers and other unwanted additives than “health food”, but the mainstream agribusiness concerns have determined that the use of the word “health” in association with food has some negative connotations for many people. What “organic” means by law, basi- cally, is that a food is grown, harvested,
Food Terms and False Claims What's Organic?
rganic” a n d “ n a t u -
What's "Natural"? How to Tell the Difference and the Truth.
transported and sold without the addition of pesticides, fungicides, coloring, waxes, oils or other preservatives. We can only look to the dictionary to help us with “natural”, which simply means
“existing in or produced by nature”. This leaves it up to us as consumers to deter- mine the relative value of that statement when it is applied to the food we eat. The general connotation of “natural”, aside from its precise definition, is that it’s better for you, more nutritious and perhaps more flavorful, and frequently it is–but just as often, especially with regard to products manufactured by larger conventional companies, the use of “natural” is intentionally misleading or even inaccurate. A fruit juice composed of only 10% actual juice with the rest being essentially sugar water is not what most people would consider “natural” in the genuine sense of that word, yet many companies think nothing of using this deceptive practice. What’s a poor food shopper to do?
Our health, and the health and well-be- ing of our families and communities, is at stake. Food is the single most important variable of daily life that we have control over, and mounting research shows it’s far too important a factor to be relegated to the back burner. To change the tide of muddy claims and ambiguous wording in our food’s marketing, we as consum- ers have to take decisive action. Here are three things you can do to reclaim control of what “natural” really means, and im- prove the quality of your food supply, and the health and safety of your family:
1. Shop at small stores emphasizing lo- cal and organic food sources. Coopera- tives and farmers’ markets that support sustainable agriculture are dependent on positive consumer word-of-mouth for survival. They don’t have large marketing departments or big budgets; they live and die by the quality of what they produce, and their products speak for themselves. Buying straight from the farmer is the
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