Meaningless nutrition marketing terms

When it comes to marketing nutrition and food products, there are various terms used by companies and industry that sound like they represent something elite, or worthwhile, but in reality, the terms are meaningless. Since there’s not regulation on all terms used on the front of food packaging, companies can claim almost anything they want, and most people will see those words on the package next to another product without those terms and consider the one without the marketing terms as an inferior product. The exclusion of meaningless terms on products can be either due to ethics by the company (they don’t want to mislead consumers), or they are unaware of the terms used by their competitors.

Here, I want to talk about one term that drives me nuts! This term brings me such frustration because I don’t think that people understand how manipulative this term is:

● Clean

Does this mean it is washed with soap and water, pasteurized, no pesticides or antibiotics? What makes a food “dirty” and who decides that? Ever seen free-range eggs or gotten an egg from a neighbor, would you classify that as clean and why? Have you seen how much dirt is on those things? I can honestly say this is one of those nutritional marketing terms that just confuses the hell out of me. Knowing what I know as a Dietitian and seeing people struggle with their food choices and suffer a bad relationship to food, this term “clean” is so stupid and so damaging. I regularly consume things that aren’t “clean” but I don’t consider them “dirty”, I simply consider them delicious and nourishing. Most people think the term clean signifies something that is better for you, but that’s not always the case. Some people consider organic peanut butter cups “clean”, but have the same calories and macros as a regular peanut butter cup. The difference is the organic ingredients (which is a topic for another discussion, stay tuned for that). Currently, nor the FDA or USDA have defined the term “clean” when it comes to food, so consumers can often get confused and think that a product is healthier than one not labeled as clean. The FDA is currently working to address the terms “natural”, and “healthy” but often, consumers confuse all of these and think they are the same when they aren’t.