“100% Natural” Doesn’t Mean What It Used To
So I was watching the Olympics last night, and a commercial came on for Bud Lite Lime featuring “a splash of 100% natural lime… flavor.” I put in the points of ellipsis because I swear I heard a pause in the announcer’s voice as there was a shift in the visual montage and accompanying background music that happened in just such a way as to deemphasize that this 100% natural to which they refer is ‘natural flavor,’ which according to the FDA definition, could mean a great variety of things (if you need help deciphering what the FDA code means, this is a good explanation of it).
Because this beer product uses only flavoring that meets the FDA definition of ‘natural,’ they are permitted to use ‘100%’ as a modifier. The end result is that “100% natural flavor” is a statement that means less than nothing, because there’s no other information about what it is or where it came from except that it contains something that was somehow derived from something that is natural, probably a lime–but even that we don’t know for sure.
Who comes up with this stuff? Or, for a better question, who actually buys it?
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
This is such a travesty. Funny, I saw that commercial a few months back and had the exact same reaction.
You’re right that “natural” means nothing at this point, although I do see some small-scale local operators who may not be organic but are trying to live up to that ideal using it to describe their products, which is unfortunate, because it suggests to consumers that there is an equivalence between what’s being sold by these small-scale producers and behemoths like Budweiser or General Mills.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:51 am
Yes,
I see food that contains high fructose corn syrup being labeled as all NATURAL too. If you ever saw the movie “King Corn,” you know how they make HFCS. If you haven’t seen it, to me there is nothing natural about soaking your corn in highly reactive acid until it turns into a mushy liquid, process it a few more times, and then, go ahead and add it to food and eat it . . . YUMM YUMMY!!
How about all those commercials that have been showing Olympic-Style Athletes, eating at Mickey D’s?????
No wonder I haven’t seen any of those athletes in any medal ceremonies . . . they be eatin’ the Big Mac instead of proper workout food —-Ba—–da—–bah—bah-baaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!!
To: Fillippelli . . . what I hate to see in the local ag spectrum are two farms both using the word sustainable to describe their individual operations . . .
One would totally qualify as certified organic (if they wanted to get certified, which they don’t) and the other is pretty darn conventional (use of treated seed and other chemicals), yet, how could you know just by looking at their web site? They both say sustainable, so they must be the same, right????
Yes, one of my pet peeves . . . naturally!!!