Of
all the ways marketing pros lie to consumers, their lies about food may
be the most maddening. Telling people that buying a new pair of shoes
will them look like a supermodel is toxic in its own way, but misleading
shoppers into thinking that the food they buy is natural or healthy
when it is not is toxic in a much more literal sense.
Of course
any halfway-savvy shopper knows that grocery store shelves are
positively rife with misleading claims. Nutella claiming it’s a health
food? That one was so bald-faced that a recent lawsuit against the
company was
roundly mocked.
But
other lies are more subtle and confusing. Largely unregulated claims
like “natural” don’t help the situation, nor does the willingness of
food companies to exploit consumer insecurities. “You
can have
it all!” the big corporate food companies seem to be saying to grocery
shoppers. “You can buy packaged, processed food that saves you time
while also becoming healthier, skinnier and more beautiful! The proof is
right there on the package.”
Another problem is that food
companies, especially the corporate ones, are often willing to cut
corners in order to pad their bottom lines.
Below you’ll find examples of all of these problems. Some of the claims are obvious lies, while others may surprise you.
1. Your Greek yogurt may be neither Greek nor yogurt.
If
you’ve never tried it before, Greek yogurt is much thicker than regular
yogurt, with a higher protein content. It’s a product that’s caught on
in the U.S. in recent years, as consumers (I count myself among them)
fell in love with the rich, luxurious texture.
As it turns out,
some brands of “Greek yogurt” that have started filling up grocery store
shelves are not made in the true Greek style. What’s more, some of it
may not even technically be yogurt.
Consumerist recently wrote a post about the issue, especially focusing on Liberté, which is widely available in U.S. supermarkets:
For
example, some companies just add more milk protein concentrate to the
mix instead of making and straining a batch of regular old yogurt. According to the Toronto Globe and Mail
, Canadian brand Liberté uses this method to manufacture their Greek
yogurt. They explain the product on the company web page as follows:
A
yogurt strained according to the principles of old-time cheesecloth
draining, which gives it an incredibly rich and creamy texture and one
that’s absolutely free of fat.
So they use the "principles
of old-time cheesecloth draining," but don't double-strain their yogurt.
Gotcha. Liberté is now part of General Mills. Some annoyed
yogurt-lovers filed a class-action suit against the company, alleging
that the use of milk protein concentrate in its Yoplait brand Greek
yogurts isn't just misleading to consumers, but means that Greek yogurt
products shouldn't legally be permitted to call themselves "yogurt."
Major bummer.
2. Vitaminwater ≠ vitamins + water.
At
first glance, Vitaminwater seems like it’d be somewhat healthy-ish – it
comes in unnatural colors, yes, but the name suggests that the product
is basically vitamin-infused water. Right? Wrong.
In fact,
Vitaminwater is a whole lot worse for you than water; the grape flavor
contains 13 grams of sugar per 8-ounce serving, and lists crystalline
glucose (sugar) as the second ingredient. (However, despite widespread
claims on the Internet, it is not worse for you than regular soda. Coke
contains closer to 30 grams of sugar in every 8 ounces. Natural fruit
juices also often contain more sugar than Vitaminwater, though those
are, of course, natural sugars.)
If you ever bought into the
Vitaminwater-as-health-drink craze, don’t beat yourself up. It would be
easy to do with all the misleading claims Vitaminwater’s parent company,
Glaceau (which is now owned by Coca-Cola), puts out there. The company
was
recently caught claiming on its UK Web site that Vitaminwater is "
spring water with fruit juice." The company soon backtracked, acknowledging the “incorrect description of the brand’s ingredients.”
As the Huffington Post
notes, Vitaminwater has also been targeted for falsely claiming that its products can heal the flu, among other things.
3. Airborne’s claims: not backed up by science.
I’m
as guilty as the next gal when it comes to giving Airborne my
hard-earned dollars. When I have a cold, I’m so desperate to ease my
suffering that I’ve even believed on occasion that the stuff was doing
something.
Unfortunately, there’s no legitimate scientific evidence that Airborne does what it claims: knock out colds. As this
ABC investigation
from 2006 shows, Airborne’s health claims – including, in one release,
the claim that the product can relieve you of your cold in as little as
an hour – are backed up by GNG Pharmaceutical Services, which is a sham:
GNG
is actually a two-man operation started up just to do the Airborne
study. There was no clinic, no scientists and no doctors. The man who
ran things said he had lots of clinical trial experience. He added that
he had a degree from Indiana University, but the school says he never
graduated.
Airborne settled a class-action lawsuit over those false claims, paying out more than $23 million in 2008.
Today,
Airborne’s claims are more circumspect (“Helps support your immune
system!”), but the old myth that Airborne products can help beat a cold
lingers.
4. That pomegranate juice is not actually going to help you “cheat death.”
Juice
is delicious and generally nutritious (assuming it came from actual
fruit and not a vat of fruit-like flavoring). But does pomegranate juice
in particular have the ability to help you “cheat death,” the way POM
Wonderful claims?
The short answer is no. As I wrote
in an article this
spring, POM Wonderful recently became embroiled in an FTC
false-advertising case for claiming that pomegranate juice has unique
powers to ward off prostate cancer, heart disease and other health
problems – claims backed up entirely by studies funded by the company
itself.
After the FTC concluded that POM Wonderful had created
deceptive advertisements, the company doubled down on those false
claims, taking an FTC judge’s quotes out of context and putting them in
yet more deceptive ads about what a miracle elixir POM Wonderful is.
Remember that the next time you pass by a bottle of the stuff.
5. Activia claims about aiding digestion are full of sh*t.
More yogurt controversy! This time we have Activia, the yogurt brand shilled by Jamie Lee Curtis in those
obnoxious commercials full of cringe-worthy euphemisms for pooping.
Last
year Activia got slapped by the FTC for falsely claiming that it’s
"clinically proven to regulate your digestive system within two weeks."
(At the same time, the FTC also got Dannon, Activia’s parent company,
for claiming that DanActive is "clinically proven to help strengthen
your body's defenses." Dannon had to pay a total of $21 million.)
Apparently
there is evidence that Activia can help “temporary irregularity or help
with slow intestinal transit time” – if you eat it three times a day.
And who is really going to do that?
As in the Airborne case,
plenty of consumers are still sure to think that eating Activia for
breakfast each day will solve their digestive issues. After all, Jamie
Lee Curtis is still making those damn commercials.
Of course
AlterNet readers are smart shoppers who already look at products on the
grocery store shelf with a critical eye. But even the most savvy shopper
could be persuaded by some of these false claims. What’s the solution?
Short of growing all our own food or shopping exclusively at food co-ops
and farmer’s markets, it’s unlikely most of us will be able to forsake
the grocery store altogether, so we’re just going to have to keep
calling out companies that lie to us. They’re a bad deal.
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