What is "all natural" anyway?

The popular drink Naked Juice settled a lawsuit for $9 million dollars, and is being forced to remove the words "all natural" from their labels. A group of consumers claimed that the drink could not claim to be "all natural" because it contained alternative sweeteners and soluble corn fibers. The company is agreeing to remove the wording from the labels, but they argue that the words "all natural" needs to be more defined.

I would have to agree with the company. Sure, there drinks have chemicals in them to make them taste better. All drinks (even bottled water!) do for the most part. I think the recent climb in gluten free and organic products has made this an actual issue. Does anyone care that the drinks claim to be "all natural"? Do we actually believe that?

I don't. Unless I handpicked the fruit from the tree myself, or dug the vegetable out of the ground, I'm just going to go ahead and assume that the product is not "all natural." The media plays a huge part in this loose wording, especially in advertising.

Watch any commercial for, pretty much, any product and they will claim certain things that offer health benefits to get a leg up on the competition. I bought ranch dressing recently, and the label said "30% less fat!" First of all, I don't care if there's 30% less fat. It's ranch dressing, it's not good for you anyway. Second, I don't really take those labels to be fact. They are an advertising tool to draw in the consumer. Were there other bottle of ranch dressing on the shelf that I could've bought? Sure. But I picked up that one because it had a shiny sticker on it that offered me more for my money. To be honest, I didn't even read the sticker until I got home.

These claims of "truly organic" and "gluten free" and "all natural" are just terms invented by the food industry to get the consumer's attention. Do I believe that there are actual truly organic, gluten free, all natural foods out there? Absolutely. But do I think that every label at the store is 100% fact? No.

Naked Juice was right; there needs to be a more defined term of what "all natural" is before they can force companies to stop claiming that there product is just that. The FDA or someone needs to put restrictions on the definition before they can start, ethically, putting restrictions on companies.