Deceptive "all natural" labels at stores victimize consumers

We proclaim ourselves to be independent Americans, resolutely unswayed by marketing strategies and stubborn in our pursuit of healthy living. We toot our horns when our meals are all organic, without GMOs, all natural... and the food industry knows. They know our new obsession, our new fad to be healthy because the ideal image is not of a person with a thick waistline slobbering over an oily plate of fries.

The intention behind consumers’ choices in the supermarket is benign. The truth is that this new age is immersed with cutting-edge, empirical scientific findings related to health. All of these espouse the same ingredients as the keys to a long life: Eat healthy and exercise. Naturally we want to reach out for the products that are cheap and healthy yet satisfy our cravings and please our taste buds. In doing so, we fall for marketing strategies that exploit our well-intended inclinations and lack of knowledge with a plethora of phrases in bright colors and subtlety in labeling design. Consumers obliviously slip into the web of deception that is so carefully weaved together by brands that infiltrate social networks, advertise on television and stimulate our subconscious desires for a healthier self.

Take the Naked juices, for example. The small, portable bottles that line grocery store shelves cost just a few dollars each. Notice the labels have just about everything that Dr. Oz would recommend: slices of peaches, groups of berries, a pile of fresh kale, some cucumbers and a spoon of chia seeds. These labels also have the phrase “No sugar added” enclosed in a box and the number of grams of Omega-3 encircled, a word we associate with being beneficial. These juices are most famously described as “all-natural” containing “only the freshest, purest stuff in the world.”

Yet PepsiCo was faced with a lawsuit $9 million lawsuit in 2013 that claimed that their products were not “all-natural” despite advertising this catchphrase globally in print and in media. These “100% fruit” drinks were found to contain synthetic ingredients such as fibersol-2, frutooligosaccharides and inulin. This is not the first time Naked has faced such an onslaught. In 2011, Natalie Pappas v. Naked Juice Co. of Glendora alleged that Naked Juices were “hiding GMO and synthetic ingredients including zinc oxide, ascorbic acid and calcium panthothenate, which is produced from formaldehyde.”

Before fists come out and manacles are pulled out of pockets, Naked is not the only criminal. Many companies try to find loopholes around FDA regulations and sell by blatantly avoiding words like “fat or sugar.”

These tactics of deceptive labeling skew the facts about the contents and the food’s actual degree of healthiness. The issue of whether the company is justified in this practice is an entirely different argument, but the point is that we, as consumers, must be more informed when reading the labels. The supermarket is a jungle, and we must do our research and know that some buzzwords such as “all-natural,” “multigrain,” “no sugar,” “green,” “acai,” “sustainability,” “power,” “refresh” and/or “light” do not necessarily equate to a healthy option. In truth, some of these words might be accurate, but consumers should always eye items with suspicion. It is an unfortunate reality, but it is something we all must do.