The plastic soup can looks as if it's a single-size meal, a healthful lunch option for one hurried customer. But the nutrition label on the back says otherwise. Gummy fruit snacks show a shower of strawberries on the label, which reads "naturally fruit flavored." Customers would be hard-pressed to find any strawberries in the ingredient list.
Because of rising obesity rates and a push for more healthy living, many new products in the supermarket claim to be low-fat, immunity-boosting, vitamin-added foods. Some brands have become more healthful. But many manufacturers are promoting a product's healthful ingredients while playing down its less nutritional qualities. It is a food label sleight-of-hand that Bruce Silverglade of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit advocacy group, calls a "rip-off" for consumers.
"There are deceptive claims all over the place: low-fat, high-fiber, light. Definitions are used arbitrarily," Silverglade said, adding that the unclear labeling is "dangerous for public health."
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