Natural not always healthy

Australians may not be getting what they expect when buying ‘natural’ foods, with almost half of foods labelled as ‘natural’ found to be high in saturated fat, sugar and/or salt.

LiveLighter analysed the nutritional quality of 331 supermarket foods with the words ‘natural’ or ‘nature’ on the packaging and found that 154 (47%) were not a core part of a healthy diet, as recommended by the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating.

Despite this, more than three in five Australian adults said they were more likely to buy food or drinks described as ‘natural’.

LiveLighter Victoria Campaign Manager and Accredited Practising Dietitian Alison McAleese warned that natural doesn’t always equal healthy.

“The word natural can be very hard to define and in Australia there are no clear guidelines for its use on food and drink products, leaving manufacturers free to use the word in a way consumers might not expect.”

Of the 97 natural foods found in the snack food aisles, almost nine in 10 were found to be unhealthy and should not regularly be part of a healthy diet, such as snack bars, muesli bars, chips, lollies, crackers and biscuits.

Overall, 46.53% of natural claims were found on discretionary foods high in saturated fat, salt and/or added sugar, 20.54% were found on dairy products, 15.71% were on meat and alternatives, 9.67% were on grain foods such as breakfast cereals, quinoa and bread, 4.53% were on fruit, 1.81% were on water and 1.21% were on vegetables, including legumes and beans.

In a survey conducted by LiveLighter in July 2016, 12% of people said they were ‘very likely’ to be influenced by the term natural, while a further 50% were ‘somewhat likely’ to be influenced.