Watch Out For Those Natural Labels...

The other day I was shopping for groceries at Super 1 Foods and went to get something to drink, looking at the choices one that looked interesting was "Peace Tea" iced tea. A huge can of iced tea for 88 cents? "100% Natural Tea / No Artificial Flavors / No Preservatives / No Artificial Colors" in this huge can? THAT had to be worth a try, so I bought it. But I also bought the juice I wanted, so I just got around to drinking the "Razzleberry Tea" Peace Tea today. And wow, I'll admit, it tasted good and was a decent beverage for 88 cents. But not iced tea. More like raspberry Kool-Aid mixed with iced tea. While I liked it, and would buy it again, I was very suspicious how something so natural and healthy could taste so good (and be so cheap). And in deciding to find out, I learned an important lesson in reading the ingredients:

Brewed Natural Tea (Pure Filtered Water, Tea), Sugar, Citric Acid, Natural Flavors, Sucralose.

It all sounds pretty good until the sucralose. No wonder the stuff tastes so good. Sucralose is not natural - it's an artificial concoction. Though I guess it's a sweetener, not a flavor, not a color, and not a tea. They never claim it's naturally sweetened. And thus, we have a lesson in deceptive marketing 101. Not to say it isn't a great product. It's cheap, it tastes great, and it probably is way healthier than most soft drinks. But I don't think you should make the big natural push and then include artificial sweeteners...