Let’s be clear, if natural ingredients are very much at the core of consumers’ demand and expectations when it comes to food and drink (and will remain rightly so), the word and claim itself, slammed on packaging all around the world, has now lost its sense and is over-rated.
 
When looking around the current marketplace in food and drink (and not just limited to nutraceuticals), “natural” is omnipresent. It’s being used, re-used and over-used as manufacturers take advantage of the long explanation given by the FDA; and it is a similar story in Western Europe as well. According to FDA’s website: “From a food science perspective, it is difficult to define a food product that is ‘natural’ because the food has probably been processed and is no longer the product of the earth. That said, FDA has not developed a definition for use of the term natural or its derivatives.”
 
Natural is applicable for any food to which no “added color, artificial flavors or synthetic substances” have been added. Only food containing components “that would not normally be expected to be in the food” cannot be called natural. So yes, saying this leaves room for interpretation of what is normally expected to be in the food in the first place is an under-statement.
 
Not surprisingly there have been backlashes against “natural” claims: from the FDA issuing a few warning letters over the misuse of “natural” claims (such as warning letters against Bagels Forever in July 2011 and Alexia Foods in November 2011) to consumers taking matters into their own hands and suing companies such as Frito-Lay and Tropicana in the past several months over “deceiving claims.”
 
Such lawsuits are always bad news as they tarnish the health and wellness industry image, but what needs to be learned from it is the very strong need to see beyond “natural” claims. The claim is losing its importance because everyone can use it and it is also taking on a gimmicky nature as well. Let the simple and recognizable ingredients do the talking. A short list of recognizable ingredients is more powerful than an overachieving packaging with “natural” all over it and has an ingredient list that takes 20 minutes to read.