I hate to break it to you, but those extreme jalapeno cheeze doodles you’re munching on that have the green leaf on the packaging and “all natural” tag — not natural. Nope, not even a little bit. Really, the only natural thing about it is how it’s naturally bad for you. If that even makes sense. This seems to be a common thing on food packaging these days now more than ever.
Walk into any grocery store or mini-market and you’ll likely see all sorts of products from juices to cereal, chips, and sauces with some sort of “natural” logo branded on the box. As the above video so hilariously points out, this is simply a marketing scam by the same sneaky folks in false advertising who brought you the “before and after” and spay-on hair scam. Companies pay big bucks to marketing firms to get their products moved off the shelves and research has shown that simply adding the word “natural” to any product dramatically increases sales of that product. “But what if it’s full of hard to pronounce chemical names and growth hormones?” Who cares! Simply add the “natural” and maybe a green leaf for effect and people can’t help, but by it.
The problem comes with this: there is technically no legal definition of the word “natural” for food and consumer products. (Uh oh.) In 1993, the FDA adhered to a policy that it wouldn’t attempt to define the word natural and would allow the word to be used on food labels, so long as it as it’s used in a way that is not MISLEADING (this the part that companies can’t be trusted with) and the product doesn’t contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances.
There’s also the issue of the word “organic” which seems to pop up almost as often as the word “natural,” yet usually brings with it a higher price tag. Walk into a grocery store and you’ll see fruits and veggies marked as organic, but how do you really know they’re organic? Well, unfortunately, unless you can speak with the stores manager about where they get the produce, and then track the farmer down and interrogate them about their growing practices, you’re kinda left in the dark. When it comes to packaged foods though, it’s a bit easier: look for the label marked USDA Organic. This is the official logo of products approved by the United States Department of Agriculture for food products without genetically modified organisms, toxic pesticides, or growth hormones and antibiotics.
Unfortunately, you’ll probably have a hard time finding USDA Organic extreme jalapeno cheeze doodles, but good luck and happy grocery shopping in the meantime.