Cleaning It Up—What Is a Clean Label Ingredient? In this column, Busken looks at the process by which ingredients are made and uses this as a basis for determining whether they are “clean label” or not. One of the challenges in making this determination is presented by the degree to which even the simpler processes are performed and how they are dealt with in labeling laws. Public perception also plays a major role in how ingredients are labeled. To determine what a clean label ingredient is, using some type of objective measure, requires developers (and consumers, if they are to be truly informed) to have a more in-depth knowledge of the process used in making an ingredient. To create a list of clean label ingredients we must also agree on what processes are OK, and to what degree, and figure out how to label them so they are differentiated from the same processes performed at levels that are not OK. |