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In yet another frivolous lawsuit, a New York man is suing Frito-Lay for misleading consumers by stating their Tostitos and SunChips are made with “all-natural ingredients.” I don’t care what a food label says, if consumers think chips are somehow “all-natural,” then we have a bigger problem.
In the proposed class-action lawsuit, the plaintiff, Chris Shake, said he shelled out an additional 10 cents per ounce in order to get chips that he thought were “all-natural,” according to the label. But, after doing some research, he discovered they actually contain corn and oils made from genetically engineered plants. His suit claims this was “deceptive” advertising, and had he know what was really in the chips, he never would have paid more for them.
As expected, a spokeswoman for Frito-Lay said the company was confident that the labeling on its chips “complies with all regulatory requirements.”
But that doesn’t make Shake feel any better. According to his lawsuit, “genetically modified organisms are created artificially in a laboratory by swapping genetic material across species to exhibit traits not naturally theirs. Since a reasonable consumer assumes that seeds created in such a way are not ‘all natural,’ advertising Tostitos and SunChips as natural is deceptive and likely to mislead a reasonable consumer.”
All of which is understandable when you first look at it, but here’s the thing: Does anyone really think that chips are somehow “all-natural”? Any consumer who believes they are buying something good for them that, in fact, is made from chemicals and preservatives needs to re-educate themselves on nutrition. Admittedly, food manufacturers do have an obligation to label their products truthfully (which, according to Frito-Lay, they did), but according to the Center for Food Safety, there is no comprehensive, formal definition of the term “natural” when it is used on food labels, so it leaves a gray area here and room for interpretation.
The bottom line is this: Consumers need to take responsibility for the food they eat, do their research and not put 100% of their trust in any advertising or labeling. Those companies are out there to sell and make money, so we need to always be wary of their claims and be our own best sources for information.
Photo: technews.tmcnet.com
Hmm, I see your point that from the CONSUMER’S point of view, yes, you shouldn’t believe everything you read, and obviously chips aren’t the most healthful snack. However, just because a chip isn’t super healthy doesn’t give the company license to lie on their packaging. I do think the average person would believe that an all-natural product does not contain GMOs, and someone may legitimately want to splurge on chips without consuming GMO products – and they should be able to trust labels when they do that. As someone who’s done a lot of research on labeling, I know that ‘all natural’ is basically meaningless – but do we really want a labeling world in which companies can bend the truth so that people have to do a ton of research every time they go to the store? Wouldn’t it be better to have a system in which there is true truth in advertising? I personally don’t see this lawsuit as frivolous at all – perhaps it will lead to nothing, but it may have some impact on labeling, and if nothing else it will raise attention to this issue that even if companies are technically following the letter of the law, they are not necessarily really giving consumers what they thing they’re getting.