Welcome to another edition of The Nutrition Overlords
Knowledge Bombs®: Natural Label Edition
I promise to keep this one short(ish).
So you're walking down the aisle of your local grocery store
and you pass by the eggs. Other than there being approximately 30 different
brands, you notice some of them carry this fancy 'natural' label (and
probably cost $2 more per dozen). So what does this ambiguous label
mean anyway?
First, we have to break foods into one of two categories,
because heaven forbid food labeling be simple. In the first group, we have
meat, poultry, and egg products. In the second group we have everything else.
When the term 'natural' is applied to
meat, poultry, and eggs it actually means something! In the USDA's Food
Standards and Labeling Policy Book (a joyous read, I assure you) under the
Natural Claims section (page 116) it states that meat/poultry/egg products
carrying the natural label must meet these two standards [1]:
