I’m not surprised that the term ‘natural’ has no official regulatory meaning on food labels. Sure, it’s a shame that any company can call any product ‘natural’, but that’s not because of the government’s failure to regulate the term. It’s because of the public’s vacuous understanding of that term in the first place.
Honey, spare ribs, tree bark and poison ivy are all equally natural, and are not recommended in large quantities. Frozen vegetables, yogurt and dried fruit are all ‘unnatural’ in that they’ve been processed significantly, but they’re not particularly bad for you.
Face it: ‘Natural’ is a marketing term disguised as a factual claim. Ignore it and it will eventually go away.
When you go to a grocery store these days, you need a magnifying glass to read all the labels. Natural, Organic, Lite, Fat Free, what does any of them even mean? But you have to read the labels or you come home with lemon cake instead of yellow cake. You can’t go by pictures on the box any more. I bought Craisons one time and when I started to use them in my oatmeal, I discovered they were chocolate covered Craisons. Hmm I wonder how that would taste. I didn’t try it out.