“Natural” helps in $40B of US food sales & means nothing!

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Nothing makes Americans buy a food product quite like the fabulously ambiguous word “natural.”  The top 35 health claims and food labels include words most anyone who has been to a supermarket in the past five years should recognize—ones like “natural,” yes, but also “organic,” and “fat free,” and “carb conscious,” and “100 calories.”  These phrases helped the food industry sell more than $377 billion worth of masterfully marketed food items in the United States during the past year, according to data from market research firm Nielsen.

The list of lucrative food labels is long, and, at times, upsetting.