8 ms·

If you're curious about artificial and natural flavors, "The Dorito Effect" is a great read on the topic. What blew me away: "Naturally flavored" is marketed as

by cgs 10y ago

If you're curious about artificial and natural flavors, "The Dorito Effect" is a great read on the topic. What blew me away: "Naturally flavored" is marketed as "healthy" when it is anything but. Natural flavors are just as bad as artificial flavors. You are adding chemicals to food to make them more palatable, but not enhancing nutrition. Those chemical compounds happen to occur in nature, but the process of isolating and extracting them then adding them back to food is just as bad as adding synthesized compounds (artificial flavors). We're so concerned with calories, but this is the real root cause of the obesity epidemic: calories without nutrition.

Latty 10y ago
The word "Natural" is a huge red flag for me. It's consistently only used by marketers to try and imply that there is something good about a product, without actually having anything good to say. If your product is healthy, you call it healthy. If your product is nutritious, you call it nutritious. "Natural" is just an excuse - we found this thing in something natural, so now we can use it. It tells you nothing of value about the product, but for some reason people have associations between "Natural" and "Good". In fact, artificial is often much better for you - artificial items are generally more strictly regulated and therefore tested, much more accurately measured and often much more sustainable and efficient to produce. As is commonly pointed out, I can provide you with some very natural poisons.
- manyxcxi 10y ago
  I've begun mentally treating "Natural" as the equivalent of someone saying "trust me". Well, I did... until you seemed to preemptively think I had a reason not to. Ignore the words on the front, flip the package over and read the little ones on the back. The higher up the ingredients list a word is, the more prominent it is in the product. Some big scary words are no big deal, others are just another word for sugar. So many ways to say sugar, it's incredible. And then there's sugar alcohols, which are a whole other pain in the ass to decode. Then there's the loop holes, if a particular ingredient isn't above a certain concentration it doesn't have to be listed- well that's freaking helpful! I'm probably not saying anything new, but you're a lot better off if you can just assemble the raw ingredients yourself.
  - Latty 10y ago
    > I've begun mentally treating "Natural" as the equivalent of someone saying "trust me". Well, I did... until you seemed to preemptively think I had a reason not to. I'm not sure what your point was there - but my post wasn't meant to be a "everyone thinks natural means good" - just that it gets used so much by marketers I assume people must. I definitely subscribe to your approach. I'm in the UK, and from what I gather our labelling requirements are stricter than the US's (at least in most states) - for example "trace" ingredients still need to be listed. Unfortunately, it is clear that most take the marketing over the reality, and I accept that it does take time to go over ingredients on everything you use (especially when batches change the ingredient list, which is pretty common). I've had to shop for diabetics before, and it's a nightmare, because two of the same product on a shelf can have 10% more or less sugar. Here in the UK, there is a lot of law around requiring advertising to be faithful to reality - e.g: recently they made a requirement that fruit juices have to list the fruits in order of quantity in the name of the juice, so you can't sell "grape and elderflower" juice that has a first ingredient of apple juice. I think these regulations, where possible, help consumers a lot, and "natural" is one of those misleading terms.
- tumba 10y ago
  Natural is poorly defined and has been the subject of class action litigation in California (particularly "All Natural"). [1] It is not an FDA defined claim. [2] In general, only the specific claims defined by the FDA may be used on products labeling. [3] Caveat: Talking about the US Source: I work for a food company [1] http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/classactions/articles/spring2012-0412-all-natural-labels-mean-marketing.html http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/classactio... [2] https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm456090.htm https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocument... [3] https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm064908.htm https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocument...
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
How governments/food associations/soulless marketers define natural vs artificial is different from a reasonable person. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I don't think many people would consider secretions from beaver anal glands a natural strawberry flavoring.

by cgs 10y ago

Latty 10y ago

The word "Natural" is a huge red flag for me. It's consistently only used by marketers to try and imply that there is something good about a product, without actually having anything good to say. If your product is healthy, you call it healthy. If your product is nutritious, you call it nutritious. "Natural" is just an excuse - we found this thing in something natural, so now we can use it. It tells you nothing of value about the product, but for some reason people have associations between "Natural" and "Good". In fact, artificial is often much better for you - artificial items are generally more strictly regulated and therefore tested, much more accurately measured and often much more sustainable and efficient to produce. As is commonly pointed out, I can provide you with some very natural poisons.

manyxcxi 10y ago
I've begun mentally treating "Natural" as the equivalent of someone saying "trust me". Well, I did... until you seemed to preemptively think I had a reason not to. Ignore the words on the front, flip the package over and read the little ones on the back. The higher up the ingredients list a word is, the more prominent it is in the product. Some big scary words are no big deal, others are just another word for sugar. So many ways to say sugar, it's incredible. And then there's sugar alcohols, which are a whole other pain in the ass to decode. Then there's the loop holes, if a particular ingredient isn't above a certain concentration it doesn't have to be listed- well that's freaking helpful! I'm probably not saying anything new, but you're a lot better off if you can just assemble the raw ingredients yourself.
- Latty 10y ago
  > I've begun mentally treating "Natural" as the equivalent of someone saying "trust me". Well, I did... until you seemed to preemptively think I had a reason not to. I'm not sure what your point was there - but my post wasn't meant to be a "everyone thinks natural means good" - just that it gets used so much by marketers I assume people must. I definitely subscribe to your approach. I'm in the UK, and from what I gather our labelling requirements are stricter than the US's (at least in most states) - for example "trace" ingredients still need to be listed. Unfortunately, it is clear that most take the marketing over the reality, and I accept that it does take time to go over ingredients on everything you use (especially when batches change the ingredient list, which is pretty common). I've had to shop for diabetics before, and it's a nightmare, because two of the same product on a shelf can have 10% more or less sugar. Here in the UK, there is a lot of law around requiring advertising to be faithful to reality - e.g: recently they made a requirement that fruit juices have to list the fruits in order of quantity in the name of the juice, so you can't sell "grape and elderflower" juice that has a first ingredient of apple juice. I think these regulations, where possible, help consumers a lot, and "natural" is one of those misleading terms.
tumba 10y ago
Natural is poorly defined and has been the subject of class action litigation in California (particularly "All Natural"). [1] It is not an FDA defined claim. [2] In general, only the specific claims defined by the FDA may be used on products labeling. [3] Caveat: Talking about the US Source: I work for a food company [1] http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/classactions/articles/spring2012-0412-all-natural-labels-mean-marketing.html http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/classactio... [2] https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm456090.htm https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocument... [3] https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm064908.htm https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocument...

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

How governments/food associations/soulless marketers define natural vs artificial is different from a reasonable person. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I don't think many people would consider secretions from beaver anal glands a natural strawberry flavoring.