Ask Lemmy

To add on to this explanation, the food industry in the US is chock full of fake marketing terms that are designed to get more eco-conscious consumers to fall into their trap. This is a problem across large swathes of the food industry, but one of the most egregious is chicken.

• "No antibiotics" is supposed to mean the chicken was never given antibiotics (shocker, I know). There is no regular methodology for verifying this label is accurate outside of random sampling of poultry at slaughter.
• "No hormones" is a completely useless label you'll see used all the time. Hormones are not allowed in the production of chickens for slaughter in the US.
• "Cage free" is another tricky one. Chickens are almost never kept in cages when raised for slaughter. Hens are frequently kept in cages for egg-laying purposes. If you see this on chicken breast packaging it probably doesn't mean anything.
• "Free-range" means the chicken had some kind of access to "outside." There are no standards for how much "outside" space is required or what that "outside" space has to look like.

So unfortunately a bit more legwork is required to make sure product labeling statements are actually worth something. That's a problem in the US, but the opposite side of the coin is problematic too (like how many people now attribute "GMO" as meaning "toxic").