Fresh? Natural? Healthy? What Your Food Labels Really Mean

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently made General Mills remove claims on Cheerios boxes that the cereal could lower cholesterol.

The FDA regulates some language on food labels, and considered the Cheerios claim a violation because marketing a product for use in prevention, mitigation or treatment of a health condition is reserved for FDA-approved drugs.

The FDA also regulates nutrient content claims, and therefore sets rules for the use of terms such as “free,” “low,” and “reduced” when referring to nutrients such as fats, sugars, and sodium. But consumers might be surprised to discover how little regulation oversees current buzzwords such as “organic,” “free-range,” and “all-natural.”

FDA-approved

U.S. law requires labels for most prepared food, such as cereal, packaged snacks, frozen and canned food, and bottled and canned drinks. Nutrition labeling for produce and fish is voluntary. But the FDA only exercises oversight on three categories of labeling: nutrient content claims, health and qualified health claims and structure/function claims.

Nutrient content labels directly or implicitly characterize the amount of a dietary substance in a product. This is where claims such as “fat-free,” “low sodium,” and “high fiber” come in. The FDA has specific definitions for the uses of “free,” “low,” and “reduced/less,” and products can’t use these claims on packaging unless approved by the FDA.

Health claims can mention reduction in risk of a disease, but can’t claim anything about the diagnosis, cure, mitigation or treatment of a health condition (which is where Cheerios ran into trouble).  The 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act allowed the FDA to authorize health claims for foods and dietary supplements after reviewing of submitted scientific evidence supporting the claim. “Qualified” claims are allowed under the 2003 FDA Consumer Health Information for Better Nutrition Initiative; if the strength of the scientific evidence is not strong enough for the FDA to authorize the claim, it must be accompanied by a disclaimer on the packaging, such as, “Supportive but not conclusive research shows that consumption of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease.”

Organic? Yes. Healthy? Maybe.

With the popularity of organic foods on the rise companies are jumping on the bandwagon, eager for their products to be seen as healthy and natural. Labeling regulations haven’t kept up with the surge, however. The term “organic” is defined and regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which has an official “USDA Organic” seal for products that meet its guidelines. Organic claims are verified by third-party certifiers who ensure USDA regulations were followed. In the case of animal by-products such as meat and dairy, animals must be fed a diet of 100% organic feed (none of which was animal byproducts); no growth hormones may be administered; and that the animals were raised with continuous access to the outside.

There are many other terms plastered all over the grocery-store aisles that mean far less. Claims such as “no chemicals added” or “no additives” are not regulated by any third parties, so the consumer essentially has to trust the company to be truthful. “No chemicals” is in fact not defined or regulated by anyone; any company can slap that label on any food product with no oversight whatsoever.

“Fresh” and “natural” do have legal definitions, but they may not mean much depending on how the label is applied. According to the USDA “fresh” simply means that food must never have reached temperatures below 26 degrees Fahrenheit. It has nothing to do, in the case of meat, dairy, and eggs, with how the animal was raised or what it ate.  “Natural” means only that product contains no artificial ingredients, colors, or preservatives. An animal may have been given growth hormones and antibiotics and fed food containing pesticides, but the product of that animal can be labeled both fresh and natural.

Let My Chickens Go

Other labels increasingly seen on meat, dairy and egg-products are phrases such as “cage-free,” “free-range,” and “grass-fed.” These buzzwords might allow companies to charge more for their products, but they don’t mean a whole lot in practice. The USDA lets companies label eggs and poultry products cage-free or free-range if the animals were “allowed access to the outside.” This doesn’t mean the animals had continuous access; only that they  had the option of being outside for some specified amount of time, possibly just minutes, for some part of each day. None of these terms mean the product is organic, and there is no third-party verification of the claim.

Similarly, “grass-fed” is a nebulous term that means only the animal had to have been fed grass at least in part. It does not mean 100% grass-fed, nor does it mean the animal had continuous access to the outside. Beef from 100% grass-fed cattle does have health benefits — higher levels of vitamins A and E, more omega 3 fatty acids, and lower levels of saturated fat — and some labels do specify “100% grass-fed.” There is no outside verification of the claim, however, so consumers must again trust the producers of the food.