Food Label Claims Part 4

The last part of the multi-part series examining common food-label claims used by companies.

"Made in..." (Country listed)

What does it mean?
This simply means that the product is assembled in the country listed.

What to watch out for
"Made in" and "From" are completely different labels here. For example, a pizza may be made by a local company in a factory down the street, but all of the ingredients to actually make said pizza may actually come from countries all over the world.

"Product of..." (Country listed)

What does it mean?
This is probably what people think of when they view the label from the previous point. This means that all major ingredients, processing and labor used to make the product are from the country listed.

What to watch out for
This is usually just seen on fruits and vegetables that are produced locally as it is becoming more and more common for multi-ingredient products to be assembled with products from all over the world. These are great products to purchase to support your local economy and farmers.

"Natural"

What does it mean?
Products have not have been changed in any way. Nothing has been added or removed (with the exception of water).

What to watch for
Consumers seem to mistake the term "Natural" with "Healthy". For whatever reason, people are tricked into this term time and time again. One of the most common I see day in and day out is "Natural Sea Salt". I see more and more companies jumping on this bandwagon, referring to their product as being "Seasoned with All-Natural Sea Salt!" Unfortunately, there is no difference between digging the salt out of the ground or drying it from sea water, they can both increase blood pressure equally!

"Organic"

What does it mean
A way of farming that avoids the use of synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, growth regulators, and livestock feed additives such as antibiotics.

What to watch out for
Many countries, counties, states and provinces may have different guidelines as to what "Organic" really means so some companies may slap this label on their products to try and cash-in. Also, many scientific studies have failed to show any significant health benefit from consuming organic products over non-organic.

-Tyler Robbins
B.Sc. PTS