diving in to find out the truth about foods
that seem healthy, but are they really?
From snack to cereal aisles,
we've heard about five popular products making big,
bold claims, so we're putting them to the test.
Thirteen grams of protein. I really like this one.
Because it has the fruit enlarged on the front of it.
[girl] Really good.
Um, lots of fibre, 20%.
Has 21% of your daily value of fibre. Wow.
-Hey, Stefania, how are you? -Hi, Rosa, how are you?
[Rosa]
So, what we're looking for today is misleading marketing
and how some people look at products and think,
"Wow, these are better than the rest."
[Rosa] Okay, let's go shopping.
[Stefania] All right.
[Rosa]
is a registered dietitian.
It's got the blueberries.
It's got the blackberries, high in fibre.
Look at that, last box on the shelf.
[Rosa] Yeah.
I want to focus on their high protein.
[jazz music]
Just down here, if you'll notice,
they're actually in the chip aisle.
[Rosa] Hey, veggie, that sounds good.
Okay, throw it in the cart. Let's go.
Who wouldn't want a high fibre brownie?
Gets things moving, right?
Absolutely. Is this too good to be true?
[scanner beeping]
[Rosa]
have something in common: a health halo.
Health halo is basically the perception that a food
is better than it says it is,
with very little evidence to back that up.
[Rosa]
The name itself implies lots of veggies,
and the company says it's a better-for-you snack.
These swimmers seem to think so, too.
The colours would, like, indicate for me,
like, carrots, peas.
-[boy] Broccoli. -[girl] Vegetables, yeah.
Exactly. That's the impression that they get.
But if we took a closer look on the ingredient list,
you're going to notice that they're not too far off
your standard brand of potato chip.
If you're eating these,
should you be eating something else instead?
I wouldn't rely on this for your vegetable intake,
that's for sure.
[Rosa]
First of all, 240 calories.
Okay, I don't know of any vegetable
that has 240 calories.
[Rosa]
Potato starch and potato flour. What's a vegetable about that?
Number two. It has sugar in it.
If it's a vegetable, probably shouldn't have sugar.
Kinda disappointing.
Vegetable starch, potato starch, potato flour.
So, essentially, they're just potato straws.
[Rosa]
about its veggie claims, but they declined to comment.
[water splashing]
From veggies to fruits,
next up, Welch's Mixed Fruit Snacks.
They're really good.
-Everyone loves eating them. -These-- these are good.
What do you notice about this box?
Fruits everywhere right off the bat.
Real fruit.
[Rosa]
in fruit snacks.
First of all, fruit puree--
-First ingredient. -is not fruit.
As soon as you take a piece of fruit and put it on the stove
and boil it, you have basically changed its properties.
You have gotten rid of the fibre
in order to make that puree.
So, this is actually just concentrated sugar
with the fruit flavoring, of course.
[Rosa]
before over US lawsuits about their real fruit claims,
but those were dismissed or settled.
Look at the fine print.
"Not intended to replace fresh fruit in the diet."
Parents think they're giving their kids maybe
a healthy alternative.
In fact, they're not.
And the way you can tell that is because of the sugars
on the side of the box. Ten grams.
This is, uh, nothing but a candy
and should be advertised as such.
[Rosa]
"Not intended to replace fresh fruit in the diet."
What do you think about that?
It seems a little hypocritical
to write "Fruit is our number one ingredient"
then have that on the side.
Well, I'm a bit confused, Welch's, about the-- the--
the branding and what it actually has.
You gotta make this a bit healthier if you want
to advertise it as the-- the fruit snacks.
Welch's stands by their label, saying this is made
with real fruit, and says their customers know
it's not intended to replace fresh fruit in the diet.
And it's not the only label that looks like
the product is loaded with fruit.
It's made with blueberries and blackberries.
Seven and a half servings per bottle. Wow.
[Rosa]
with 7 1/2 servings of fruit and 21% of your daily fibre.
Says it's 100% fruit juice, so I would think from that,
you're not getting anything added in it.
[Rosa]
with a supplement called inulin.
The fibre source is not naturally occurring
from a whole blended fruit.
Oh! Wow, well, that's-- that's pretty terrible.
Um, I mean, you-- you think over here
it's all, like, fruit stuff.
[Rosa]
is also an additive.
In addition of extra blue pigment
to keep the product looking the way that it does.
-Is it good for you? -No.
This is a sugar bomb, is what this is.
They're trying to make you think that this is from fruit,
therefore it's healthy.
Eat a fruit.
[Rosa]
about the 7 1/2 servings of fruit in this,
Bolthouse is busted on that, too.
As of 2019, Canada's Food Guide
no longer classifies juice as a serving of fruit
because it's now considered a sugary drink.
So, we asked Bolthouse about this.
They say starting next year,
it won't be on the label anymore.
Bolthouse says it adds inulin for the fibre benefits
and tells us that they use juice from concentrate
to keep the product affordable.
Up next, fibre1 Brownies.
The company says its bars are baked naturally
with five grams of fibre,
and that fibre never tasted so good.
Deni Ogunrinde looks for healthy snacks
with added fibre all the time.
I'm gonna be nosey and ask to see what's in your cabinets.
-Can you show me? -Yeah, absolutely.
[Rosa]
She's tried all kinds of products
for their fibre content.
But to her surprise, products like this weren't helping.
This is the type of fibre that not only wouldn't help me,
but it would actually make my symptoms worse.
[Rosa]
the fibre supplement, inulin.
For someone at least like me, who has my type
of irritable bowel syndrome, it would just make me
feel pretty awful.
[Rosa]
For others, it could cause discomfort.
What we know about inulin is it's something we call
fermentable fibre.
Our gut bacteria love to eat from it.
And for some people, particularly those,
let's say, with irritable bowel syndrome,
uh, they find that they over-produce gas
from this product.
Let's take a look here.
If you're looking at the first ingredient,
they're using enriched wheat flour, which is white flour.
And then the second ingredient is inulin,
which is a fibre supplement.
And then the third ingredient's icing sugar.
Is it a cookie?
Essentially, with a fibre supplement added to it.
So, what I encourage families to do
is see if you can do your own baked goods at home.
You can use whole grains like oats or whole grain flour
as the basis that have more fibre.
The company behind fibre1, General Mills,
says they're following Health Canada's rules.
They clarify that not all the fibre
comes from inulin, some comes from sugar cane.
[upbeat music]
[Deni] I think having greater transparency
about, um, what is actually in all of the food that people
are eating and focusing more on that, that would be helpful.
[Rosa]
she can get back to doing what she really loves.
♪
Which one of these products raises
the most red flags for our experts?
Claims like that tell the consumer that this is okay,
that it normalizes it, that this is fine to do.
[Rosa]
Get more
Sign up for our weekly newsletter,
at cbc.ca/marketplace.
[Rosa]
We're on the lookout for lousy labels.
Flagging foods that our dietary experts
say fall under a health halo.
They may look like a good choice,
but when you dig into their healthy sounding claims...
It might have you rethink your decision.
[Rosa]
brownies and Veggie Straws.
Our experts worry about this label the most.
Meal replacement, Vector,
usually found in the cereal aisle,
geared towards athletes
and for anyone looking to boost protein.
What do you notice about what it's--
High protein.
Is that something you think a lot about?
-Yeah. -Yes, definitely.
I try to put as much protein at, like,
every single meal because that makes us feel good and be full.
When I see high protein
and I was working out a lot
and it was an easy breakfast, so I always eat this.
[Rosa]
with slogans like "Fuel up," and ads featuring athletes,
often promoting its high protein and micronutrients.
[commercial announcer]
-Why do you pick this? -For the protein, really.
I don't have any dairy. I have it on its own.
[Rosa]
isn't coming from Vector itself.
A big claim on the Vector, obviously.
Big font, high protein.
What are we really looking at here?
Well, I'd even flip that question back to you.
As an average consumer, as a mom--
-Yep. -where do you think
that protein is coming from?
I'd say it's in the box, 13 grams of protein in this box.
My teenager is putting it in his bowl.
He's eating it up, I'm thinking, "Done."
For a serving of Vector stipulated on the box,
there's about 5.7 grams of protein,
which is different than the 13 grams
advertised on the front.
So, in truth, the 13 grams of protein
is really coming from when the cereal is combined
with cow's milk.
[Rosa]
has about the same amount of protein as many other cereals.
Still, Health Canada, which overseas labels,
allows the claims on all these labels,
but the CFIA tells us if customers feel misled,
they can file a complaint.
What they're doing is they're adding the milk
to tell you how much protein.
Can they do that?
Apparently they can.
I eat this lot, actually, and I've never thought
to look at the side, but...
wow.
They should have like a--
like-- like a-- like a--
thing over here, like something to say, "With milk."
[Rosa]
near that 13 gram claim,
but the swimmers tell us it's easy to miss.
So, I guess this isn't the best option for high in protein.
Wow.
We asked Kellogg's about this claim.
They say Vector is a meal replacement,
not a cereal, so they follow those rules.
Kellogg's says they voluntarily included
protein information with and without milk.
Still, experts say it's not enough.
Claims like that tell the consumer that this is okay,
that it normalizes it, that this is fine to do.
[Rosa]
-for the companies.
When you go to the store and you want
a healthy option, that should be accessible for them.
Should be something easy for you to get.
I'm not a food scientist.
I'm a high school student, you know, I should not
have to do this much research.
You know, I'm not-- I'm not CBC