In America "All Natural" Food is Anything But

It's a marketing ploy. Plain and simple. Pseudo-health foods from all corners of the grocery store toting health claims from "100% Natural" to "Made from Natural Ingredients" are facing a torrential downpour of lawsuits slated against their faulty claims aimed at confusing consumers and cashing in on a marketing grey area the size of Texas.

Recently, everyone's third favorite brand of salty snack confections Popchips settled a $2.4 million lawsuit claiming liability for misleading consumers that the ingredients in their products were "All Natural".

Pepsi faced similar lawsuits last year totaling $9 million, weening their popular Naked Juice products from the "Natural" line of juice drinks because it contains artificial fillers among other GMO ingredients. They intend to use the term "Simply" instead, and the "All Natural" claims will no longer appear on certain Gatorade and Frito Lay varieties.

Not to be left out, Trader Joes paid out a $3.4 million settlement for all products labeled "100% Natural" since 2007 that contained ascorbic acid, xanthan gum, vegetable diglycerides, and cocoa pressed with alkali.

So what gives? What does 'natural' even mean? The Food and Drug Administration, to this day, has no clear definition of what constitutes fair usage of the term, but as long as a product doesn't contain, "added color, artificial flavors or synthetic substances" it gets the green light.

Many consumers love "All Natural" claims because they invoke a warm fuzzy image of farmers dancing in wheat fields and picking strawberries by hand. The reality if much less celluloid.

In short, consumers need to be better informed about what exactly they are consuming. If you don't know the source of your food, chances are you can't trust what goes in to it. Efforts to block labeling of GMO foods arise from food producer's fear that knowledge of industrial agricultural practices will lead to a paradigm shift that focuses on local, transparent food sources. And who would want that?