The State, SC
07-22-06
Many shoppers confused over ‘natural’ foods
FDA’s relaxed stance on defining groceries spurs debate, controversy y BARRY SHLACHTER
McClatchy Newspapers
Stumped over what’s “natural” food?
You’re not alone.
Jana Morgan considers herself a careful shopper who nonetheless was stumped when asked whether she considered high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil — a sweetener and a fat widely used by food manufacturers
— to be natural.
“I am not really sure. I know ‘organic,”’ said Morgan, who operates a UPS Store in Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband. “My assumption is that a lot of processed food will not be purely natural.”
The federal Agriculture Department clearly defines natural when applied to labeling meat and poultry: no artificial or synthetic ingredients
— including hormones — and minimally processed.
But the Food and Drug Administration says it has no plans to do likewise for the galaxy of groceries it regulates.
With no clear definition, confusion and even controversy have been generated.
Consumer groups are urging that the FDA restrict the use of the word natural and demand that food manufacturers stop being so free with it on labeling until the government acts. This spring, one organization threatened legal action against a popular soft drink, “100 percent natural” 7UP.
“Natural means nothing,” said Urvashi Rangan, a toxicologist and a senior scientist at Consumer Reports, which has urged government action. “You have to flip the box over and exa mine the ingredient list. You’ve got to do your homework. But there’s no requirement for what the ingredients have to be, to be considered natural.”
The resulting vacuum has allowed manufacturers and supermarket chains to divine their own, often conflicting, definitions.
Critics say products labeled natural or all-natural should contain neither high-

fructose corn syrup nor hydrogenated vegetable oil, whose trans fatty acids are created in an industrial process.
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Whole Foods, for example, does not sell natural-labeled foods if they contain hydrogenated oil.
• Kroger, the nation’s biggest food retailer after Wal-Mart, sells a store-brand granola, “100 percent natural cereal,” that contains partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oil. But none of its natural-category products include high-fructose corn syrup, Kroger spokesman Gary Huddleston said.
• Zone Perfect All-Natural Nutrition Bars, made by a unit of Abbott Laboratories, have no hydrogenated oil but do have high-fructose corn syrup.
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And the newly reformulated “100 percent natural” 7UP similarly uses the ubiquitous corn-derived sweetener.
Studies have linked hydrogenated oil, which contains trans fatty acids, to heart disease. The Harvard University School of Public Health, which has warned about health risks of the highly processed oil since the early 1990s, said in an
April study that removing trans fats from the industrial food supply could prevent tens of thousands of heart attacks and cardiac deaths each year.
Although high-fructose corn syrup has detractors, scientists have yet to find a conclusive link to obesity and have not determined whether it’s any less healthy than other sweeteners, says Marion Nestle, a New York University nutritionist and author of “What to Eat.”
But although consumer groups argue that calling the corn sweetener natural misleads the public, manufacturers maintain it’s as natural as other approved additives.
With the organic and natural market burgeoning, billions of dollars are at stake.
Strict guidelines govern the growing and processing of organic food products, but industry analysts frequently lump them with so-called natural items as a segment category.
Although the Iowa State University Agricultural Marketing Resource Center says organic foods are outpacing natural ones in sales growth, products labeled allnatural were the most frequent “positive” new product category in North
America during 2003, according to Mintel, a research firm. One study has shown that shoppers are willing to pay 30 percent more for food products labeled natural.
In 1993, the FDA indicated it “would consider establishing a definition” because consumers regard many uses of the term as “noninformative.” But late last

month, spokesman Mike Herndon said there is no plan to do so.
The agency, he said, does not object to the word natural on food labels when it’s used in a nonmisleading manner and when the food does not contain “added color, artificial flavors or synthetic substances.”
“The loophole,” said Rangan of Consumer Reports, “is that they don’t define synthetic.”
Food and beverage processors use high-fructose corn syrup because it is much cheaper than sugar. Cost is also a factor with hydrogenated oils, which can be manipulated to provide the needed consistency for a particular product while prolonging shelf life.