Comedian Dave Barry once quipped that grown-ups are the people who read food labels before they eat something, as opposed to as entertainment while they eat it.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing entertaining about turning over a bottle or box and finding a dozen mostly unpronounceable ingredients that sound like they belong in a bottle of floor cleaner, like dipotassium sulfate and sodium erythorbate. Who wants to eat those?

We deserve better for ourselves and our families.

The movement away from so-called “franken-foods” has created a push for more natural products. “Clean label” is a term you’ll hear more and more in coming years because it’s a big deal to a lot of people. This consumer-driven wave of purchasing power demands real food and total transparency about what’s in it. For example, one in 10 new products launched last year in the United States was labelled organic, according to research from Innova Market Insights in The Netherlands.

Clean label means simple ingredients — nothing synthetic, nothing artificial, nothing confusing. Food is minimally processed and usually free of GMOs, too.

Part of the reason behind the popularity of clean label is increased consumer health consciousness, as well as sensitivity to certain ingredients. For example, three-fourths of American consumers claim to read the nutritional and ingredient labels of food products, and nearly as many “strongly agree” it is important for those labels to contain mostly recognizable ingredients. Ninety-one percent say they believe recognizable ingredients are healthier, according to Innova.

Clean label also tells us a lot about the companies that manufacture them. These are brands that care about the health and wellness of people and offer authentic products to match those values. 

While the clean label concept is easy to understand, there’s no official seal or specification from the Food and Drug Administration or the US Department of Agriculture. Go Clean Label offers a certification, but generally speaking, finding clean label means turning over what you’re about to eat and reading. How many ingredients are there? Can you pronounce them? Do you know what they are?

Purpose Purple Tea: A Clean Label Brand 

Turn around a bottle of Purpose Tea and you’ll find just four ingredients we openly list on our website. We’re proud of our organic purple tea leaves that create a lightly sweetened, delicious drink that’s pure, simple, and ready to go. Our clean label makes it easy to feel good about what you’re putting into your body.

As consumers around the world get more curious about what’s in their food, expect clean label to continue to grow and that’s good news for all of us.

What are your thoughts about clean label and the ingredients in your foods? Leave us a comment below!