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Snacks: You Lie!
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From last week’s Skinny Cow lawsuit to a failed Pirate’s Booty test, fuzzy math seems to be tricking people into thinking their favorite treats are healthier than they are. View our 10 culprits.
Last week, Weight Watchers filed a lawsuit against the makers of the Skinny Cow line of diet ice-cream snacks. Their alleged violation? Not only listing the weight-loss program's "points" on the label, but calculating the points incorrectly.
Keep in mind that diet food can be hazardous to your waistline even when properly labeled. One study—"Can 'Low-Fat' Nutrition Labels Lead to Obesity?"—indicates that even when food products are properly labeled, consumers eat more, because they increased their conceptions of how big an appropriate portion size should be and decreased their “consumption guilt.”
The snack bag declared it was “Good for you!” but when a Good Housekeeping Institute staffer munched on the rice puffs, she thought it was too good to be true. It was.
Now layer on the potential faulty labeling, and you have the diet from hell. Is your favorite snack under suspicion? Skinny Cow is far from the first diet treat to be accused of stretching the truth about its nutritional content. Here are 10 of the best from recent years.
Skinny Cow
Cow, yes. Skinny, maybe not so much. In a lawsuit filed last week, Weight Watchers alleged that Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, maker of the Skinny Cow line of diet frozen snacks, had not only used the weight-loss program's "points system" on Skinny Cow packages without consent, but also had calculated the points incorrectly. The court filing also says that Dreyer's had previously agreed not to use any of Weight Watchers' trademarks, and made similar allegations against Nestlé, the parent company of Dryer's, involving the Lean Cuisine Casual Eating line. Dreyer’s did not respond to media inquiries when the report was filed.
Sara Lee Soft and Smooth Bread
Food fibbing hit the bread aisle last year. Sara Lee agreed to modify the packaging of its "Soft and Smooth" sandwich bread, which had been marked as "whole grain." In fact, the bread only contained 30 percent whole grains; it was made mostly with refined white flour. An advocacy group had threatened to sue the food company if the packaging wasn't changed.
CremaLita
If you want something cold and low-cal, try ice. Ice cream, on the other hand, will likely always be bad for you, which is why it's so good. In late 2003, the New York City Department of Consumer affairs told the frozen-dessert chain CremaLita to either change its advertising or pay fines on each of 61 counts of false advertising. The product in question? Its supposedly low-cal fat-free frozen dessert, which CremaLita advertised had just 60 calories in a small four-ounce serving. In reality, not only did a four-ounce portion actually contain 154 to 181 calories, but its stores were selling a small serving with six ounces, pushing the calorie count up to between 235 and 271. A consumer affairs department official said she was "outraged" by the fake ice-cream purveyor's "cynical" behavior.
Tasti D-Lite
Another faux-ice-cream chain brought down by the intrepid reporting of The New York Times, Tasti D-Lite advertised its four-ounce portion of creamy frozen mystery substance as having only 40 calories, less than a fifth of the actual calorie count of 224. Part of the problem was the larger-than-advertised serving, which a store owner justified by saying that of course customers know they're getting extra: ''They almost kill the girls if they give them four ounces.'' The chain lost the right to use the badge "low calorie" in 2005.
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motormouth
Can somebody explain what genius thought it would be a good idea to compensate people for being sold over-fatty food ... by giving them *more* fatty food?
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UpperRight90
If you buy something from one of the interior aisles or the frozen food section of an American grocery store you should know that is will not be healthy and lo-cal.
Lotto1
Nice to know that weight lose has become the newest way to scam people. As if joining WW is pushing "low points" (what ever that is) foods is a rip off. Seeing these 2 food giants fight it out just reminds you go back to basics.
sobo68
Join WW...it works and is hardly a rip off. Have lost 30 pounds doing WW. It's the ONLY plan that works. YOU have to cook YOUR own food (heaven forbid) so you actually learn something...unlike most of the plans on the market that ship your food to you...so you have no clue how to stick with the plan once the food stops coming in the mail! Points is nothing more than a way to know when you're at your limit for a particular day.
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kscr14
You are off track Lotto1. Weight Watchers is a method of teaching people that need the tools to eat properly. It is safe,long term and not very expensive. Not everyone understands the portion control and food pyramid. They also teach how important exercise is to get you moving.
What is the difference if you buy a Banquet dinner or a W.W. dinner?A Dannon yougurt or a W.W. dinner?
Wednes
And if you can't afford $60 to get started on WW, there's Dotti's weight loss site (kind of a scary chick with a mullet) that has all the same information for free.
ApresSki
Best bet for just reading about calories and for getting some good substitutes: www.hungrygirl.com!
Signup for their newsletter & it's delivered to your inbox with all the calories counted and what you can do to recreate a good, low calorie substitute for it.
Otherwise, UpperRight90 is absolutely correct. Nothing will be healthy, low fat, or low cal . . . Eat at your own risk!
whirlofagirl
nobody better mess with my skinny cows! i don't follow the ww point system anyway and it's all about portion control.
kscr14
Dam Skinny Cow. Weight Watchers is a wonderful program.The meeting I went to yesterday I met women and men that have lost forty and fifty pounds counting points. Each point means alot when you are eating a balanced diet. I always thought the Skinny Cow products tasted too good or rich to be very low cal.
I hope Weight Watchers wins big.
debnewyorker
Portion control. I laugh! I eat all 6 at once.
AngelaM
That's the problem with these 'skinny' treats, treats are never meant to be 'skinny', that's what makes them treats. I only eat premium icecream and if I want a donut, I'll have one. They're cooked in oil. They are not healthy nor 'skinny', but delicious. If you don't eat that stuff every day it won't hurt you. Have a treat and enjoy it. Eat real butter and whipped cream, just not so much. Life's too short for 'sugar free' chocolate.
djanimaequeen
You got it right. It not what you eat it how much of it you eat. If you are fat it's because you eat too much. Not because you have a glandular problem or because the food you eat is not 'skinny'.
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doyles
Pirate's Booty is not a breakfast cereal and does not come in a box. It is a product similar to Cheese Doodles or Cheetos and it too comes in a bag. It also lists White Cheddar Cheese as an ingredient. They are also found in the snack aisle next to potato chips, tortilla chips and pretzels. Educate yourself as a consumer...Because something is advertised as having natural ingredients does not mean it is healthy...
megagood
Pirate's Booty is a salty snack that comes in a bag. I'm therefore curious which cereal box was describing it. . . :)
david7134
Consider this, fat is not bad for you. It does not promote cardiac disease and is less fattening than carbs.
jobert
I just took one look at the products mentioned and saw that they are all super processed.
If this is a subject of interest to you, please read Michael Pollan's book, "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto." That book really changed the way I view healthy eating and my relationship to food (that sounds corny, I know).
Low-fat diets don't make you lose weight, nor do low-carb diets as we understand them. What has happened is that our food is more and more being created and changed in labs, and not coming from the ground. I suspect food scientists don't really know what they're doing, fooling around with nature.
Countries that have not incorporated processed food into their diets do not have anywhere near the amount of chronic illness that we have. Low rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc.
Ditch the processed food: eat only what your great-grandmother would recognize as food, don't eat anything that has ingredients you can't pronounce, and stay out of the middle aisles of supermarkets--real food is on the perimeter!
EAT FOOD, NOT TOO MUCH, MOSTLY PLANTS!
scott1607
As repeatedly commented above, it's all about PORTION control. It's much better to have an occasional small serving of real ice cream than these brightly-packaged chemically suspect "fat-free" products. Nothing in life is free!
jobert
One more thing, in addition to my previous soapbox about avoiding processed food.
I was not trying to lose weight when I started skipping processed foods because I am comfortable with my weight, but I ended up losing a little as an unintended consequence. I have followed the guidelines about eating healthier that is mentioned in Pollan's book, because I just wanted to feel better and avoid the health problems my parents have. Now I've had to start wearing a belt. I haven't checked my weight, but I have definitely dropped a size. I'm a little mad, because I can't afford to buy a new wardrobe.
There is a learning curve to getting used to eating natural foods. I still craved the processed stuff at first, but now I don't miss it. It looks toxic to me now.
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