How do the people who make granola bars call their products "natural" or "straight from the forest" and yet put chocolate chips in them?

If you’re talking about nature valley granola bars, like it’s said in your tags, I’d assume people who eat them aren’t really about eating natural foods since they contain HFCS…so I doubt they care that the bars contain chocolate.

Cacao comes from the forest. ;)

advertising , packaging, and food processing

You can get organic chocolate, but I doubt any of the bars in the average grocery store contain it. But that’s different than just “natural.” Read the ingredient list and see if anything sounds chemically to you when buying natural. All natural means is that no chemicals have been added. But use of the label “natural” is also not regulated, according to the article I’m linking below. I remember Susan Powter ridiculing some food brand for saying on its label that it contained xanthan gum. She said something like “Can you imagine eating anything that sounds like xanthan gum?” I found out years later than xanthan gum is a naturally occurring gum found in certain trees. It’s used as a binding agent in foods. It’s natural! Then again, that doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Botulism is natural, too.

For more on this, here is one article of many that raises some good points.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_324/ai_n6160617

Marketing.

Sometimes they are not actually chocolate, but are carob, so the label could say All Natural and Chocolate Flavored Chips.

My chocolate stash is Lindt, and the ingredients look all natural to me. Natural doesn’t mean healthy… Sugar is natural, High Fructose Corn Syrup is natural.

For what it’s worth, oats (a main ingredient in granola) don’t grow in a forest, and harvesting, dehulling, rolling, and cooking them makes them about as natural as processed chocolate. It’s all marketing spin. The ingredients might come from nature (hence “natural”), but I’m sure Mother Nature wouldn’t recognize them in a lineup.

Haven’t you seen chocolate chip trees?

Because they’re all deceptive marketing.