Ask five shoppers at the grocery store if they like to buy products that are natural or organic, and they’ll all give you the same answer. Ask the same shoppers what it means for food to be natural, and they’ll give you five.

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“Healthier.”

“I think it definitely seems less processed.”

“Less pesticides. Supporting your local farmer.”

“A marketing tool.”

“You know what it is? It’s just a word, and it’s left to the imagination.”

“Natural” is all of these things. Or none of them. Or some of them, sometimes. Unlike the “organic” label, which indicates a product has met specific standards for ingredients and production, “natural” is not regulated by the USDA. The exception is meat and poultry, which must meet a few standards (no artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, or preservatives) if manufacturers want to stick the word “natural” on their skinless chicken thighs.

Customers might have no idea what “natural” food is, but they want it. Natural and organic food sales in the U.S. jumped by more than a billion dollars every year from 1999 to 2006, and Food Marketing Institute surveys consistently demonstrate customer interest in healthier options at the grocery store. The grocery industry has been quick to provide products plastered with the word “natural” on it; what it has been less quick to provide is any real help in discerning what the heck that means.

In the last six weeks, local Safeways rolled out both an in-house line of natural products, Open Nature, and a shelf labeling system, SimpleNutrition. Little pastel boxes on store shelves flag products as “Organic,” “Gluten Free,” “Sugar Free,” and of course “Natural.” Safeway spokesperson Craig Muckle says the system is a service to shoppers. “Customers are always asking for more product information, and this was a way of providing the information in a simple and easy manner,” he explains. Given the confusion around what “natural” means, it makes sense that a grocery store would set its own standard for the word.

Except there is no standard for products with a “Natural” flag.

“If the manufacturer labels its products as natural, it would qualify for a natural tag in our SimpleNutrition system,” Muckle says. Products are not screened internally. “Essentially, we are taking their word for it,” Muckle says. “I get the impression that most manufacturers would want to be genuine with the information.”