A couple of weeks ago I wrote about companies adding the word “natural” to products that really aren’t. The FDA has not real made a firm statement on what should be considered “natural.” When I looked up the word natural in the dictionary, the definition was “existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.” I don’t think GMOs, pesticides, etc. would fit under this definition. Plain and simple, the word “natural” on food products is very misleading.
Since no one is sure what the FDA will do regarding legal challenges over using the word “natural”, Pepsico (which owns Frito-Lay and Quaker) has decided to go ahead and change some of their products by just using the word “Simply.” They say they are changing the wording because they are updating their marketing. When I looked up the word “simply” some of the definitions were: a. In a plain and unadorned way b. In an unambiguous way; clearly. I guess you could stretch that to be somewhat less offensive than natural, but not really. They have changed the name from “Simply Natural” to just “Simply”. Nothing else has changed. The ingredients are the same. So, don’t be fooled by semantics. I think they realize they will lose the natural challenge and have decided to get out now.
Last year PepsiCo was sued for using the words “all natural” on their product Naked juices. It turns out there were artificial ingredients in it. I guess they will change it to Simply Naked now and leave in the garbage.
So, don’t be fooled when you start seeing the word “simply” on everything. Nothing has changed. You will still be getting artificial ingredients. However, hopefully in the near future, the FDA will define clearly what it means to be natural so that when you do see the word natural on a food product you will know that it is in fact natural.
I have two links below. The first is a short video that will teach you about the word natural as it is used today but it will make you laugh as you learn. The second is an article on PepsiCo and other companies who are removing the word natural from their products because they want to or because they were forced to.