Natural disaster or merely natural essences?
Sparkling water firm sued over all-natural claim
Contained in pastel-coloured cans and flavoured with the likes of lime, passion fruit and coconut, LaCroix sparkling water has garnered a fiercely loyal fan base. When a law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against parent company National Beverage earlier this month, putting the drink’s “all natural” claims under scrutiny, devotees were faced with a nagging question: what is “natural,” anyway?
Plaintiff Beaumont Costales, a law firm in New Orleans, alleges the cult favourite seltzer water contains a number of “artificial” ingredients including limonene, linalool, and linalool propionate (a.k.a. linalyl propionate). According to a statement from the law firm, “LaCroix in fact contains ingredients that have been identified by the Food and Drug Administration as synthetic. These chemicals include limonene, which can cause kidney toxicity and tumours; linalool propionate, which is used to treat cancer; and linalool, which is used in cockroach insecticide.”
Natural Beverage has refuted the allegations, saying LaCroix flavours are extracted from the “natural essence oils” of each fruit identified on the can, which are free from sugars and artificial ingredients. “All essences contained in LaCroix are certified by our suppliers to be 100 per cent natural,” the company said in a statement.
But in the context of food labelling, what does “natural” really mean? And should the alleged inclusion of “synthetic” compounds be cause for worry for LaCroix drinkers?
Labels including terms such as “natural” can be misleading and sway consumer perception of a product’s value. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) website, “Substances that impart flavours that have been derived from a plant or animal source may be claimed to be ‘natural.’”
As Popular Science reports, the three compounds named in the lawsuit are not only naturally occurring, but present in a vast number of foods and drinks on the market in the U.S. Limonene is present in the oil extracted from citrus peels, linalool in a wide variety of flowers and spices (e.g. cinnamon, mint) and linalyl propionate is expressed from plants such as ginger and lavender.
“It is very unlikely these naturally occurring substances pose a health risk when consumed at levels usually found in foods,” Roger Clemens, an expert in food and regulatory science at the University of Southern California, told Popular Science. “If there were a health risk, then citrus juices and spices, such as curry, would not be consumed or be part of the commodity market.”