Food Labels, Decoded by the Actual Regulation
Pantry Lab sorts food-label claims into two buckets: legally regulated, with a citable federal source and (sometimes) a mandatory audit behind it, and marketing language with no enforced meaning at all. We report label facts and regulatory definitions — never diet, health, or efficacy advice, and never a "healthy/unhealthy" verdict on any food.
Most "what does this label mean" content repeats the marketing copy back to you. We start from the actual federal source: USDA Organic is a real 7 CFR Part 205 audit, but "natural" has no FDA definition at all; "free range" sets almost no bar, and "pasture-raised" has no federal standard whatsoever; "no hormones added" chicken is true of every chicken sold in the US, because hormones were never legal in poultry to begin with. Start with the dataset below — every row cited to its federal source.
Decode a specific claim
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How we work
We're a research-based site: every claim on this site is checked against a primary federal source — the eCFR text, USDA FSIS or AMS guidance, or FDA's own policy statements — not secondary summaries. We report what a label claim is legally required (or not required) to mean, never a health-outcome or "healthy/unhealthy" verdict. Read our full methodology →