Organic and natural are not the same. Organic foods meet strict regulations and are produced under regulated circumstances, while natural foods have no official definition or certification. Natural flavors can be made in labs and may not have nutritional value.
Not too long ago, organic would have been defined as those things derived from plants or living materials. Today there are strict regulations in many countries as to which foods can be labeled as organic. The terms organic and natural can be confusing because they can imply things that are made from nature, but they are not necessarily the same.
Foods can be labeled organic and natural, which means they tend to be free of chemically produced substances, but when a food is called organic, this takes the matter a step further. It means that the producer of the food has created the food under strict and regulated circumstances. Government organizations like the US Department of Agriculture create standards, which foods must meet to be considered organic and carry an organic label. These foods tend to be hormone-free, only treated with pesticides that are considered “organic,” and the food is produced in a region where organic food production is possible. It can take several years for a farm to convert to the standards required to consistently earn that organic label.
Sometimes the line between organic and natural is blurred because it would make sense to think that minimally processed foods do not contain pesticides. One of the main differences between organic and natural is the way the government defines these terms. When you buy organic foods, they must meet certain defined standards.
Currently, most governments do not have an official definition of natural. They may go as far as to describe natural products as not being chemically produced, but there is little to no certification for “natural foods” or things called “all natural.” When a food is natural, that doesn’t really tell you much about it, nor does the description guarantee a certain purity or safety of the product. A natural food, unless otherwise stated, is not an organic food.
It is important to understand the main differences between organic and natural, then, as normative and referring to foods that may have minimal processing. Some natural foods can be defined as foods that are left in a form close to the original. This is not always the case, such as with terms like natural flavoring. Natural flavors can be made in labs and contain things we wouldn’t normally consider to be food sources like certain oils or meat by-products. These flavors have to be made from food, but they are foods that have no nutritional value in a product and may or may not have been organically produced.
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