Editorial: Label lies no surprise anymore

If you find yourself on your couch watching Teen Mom reruns with a pint of Karamel Sutra Ben and… If you find yourself on your couch watching Teen Mom reruns with a pint of Karamel Sutra Ben and Jerry’s ice cream after a particularly bad breakup, you’ll no longer be fooled into thinking “at least what I’m eating is all natural.”

After receiving a letter from a nonprofit watchdog group earlier this month, Ben and Jerry’s parent company, Unilever, agreed to take the phrase “all natural” off the label, according to the Huffington Post.

It turns out Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, though delicious and available in unique and bountiful flavor combinations, is about as natural as Heidi Montag. The pints of creamy goodness contain factory-made ingredients like fake vanilla, alkalized cocoa, corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Appetizing, we know.

So why was Ben and Jerry’s allowed use with the “all natural” label for so long?

“Anyone can put the term ‘natural’ or ‘all natural’ on most foods, since the Food and Drug Administration has no formal definition of the term and doesn’t regulate it or really police it,” the Huffington Post reports. “So far, according to the agency, it has ‘not objected to the use of the term if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors or synthetic substances.’”

It seems clear that Unilever was taking advantage of the trend towards organic and local food when labeling Ben and Jerry’s ice cream as “all natural.” This would be an honorable marketing strategy if the products were actually all natural by the common person’s definition of the term — if the ice cream did not contain factory-made ingredients.

Although we can’t exactly applaud Unilever for using the “all natural”  label in the first place, we at least appreciate the company’s willingness to remove it.

In our ideal situation, companies wouldn’t make such claims on their labels if they also use factory-made ingredients. The FDA would create stricter standards and definitions of what is “natural” and “all natural,” as well as regulating the term and making sure it is not being misused.

But we have an even easier solution since this ideal situation might never exist. No matter what the front of the food package says, always make sure to read its label and see what the ingredients are. The shorter the list of ingredients, the better. And if you can’t pronounce an ingredient or if it doesn’t sound like something you would keep in your kitchen, it’s probably not a “natural” one.