Exposing FALSE Advertising (food edition)

[@100chocobo]

I know Pop-Tarts aren't healthy, but I thought at the very least, it was unhealthy Jam!

[@satyasyasatyasya5746]

We get our food from real life Shin-Ra... at least we don't eat chocobos... oh wait... we kinda do xD

[@heatherduke7703]

Can you imagine if we made thick sugar syrup at home, added some red food coloring and flavoring, and then put it in jars as strawberry jam 🤦‍♀️

[@huleeyaxerssius7]

Not to mention, they taste very artificial, and just blech really. But there you go, certainly not the best of things, those sugar-packed rectangles.

[@heavybrambles]

If it helps you feel better, strawberries are >90% water, so strawberry would actually be significantly higher up the ingredients list if it wasn't in dried form (you don't say an apple only contains 15% apple). If you're lucky you might get almost an entire small strawberry's worth in there.

[@dawnkindnesscountsmost5991]

One is almost better off buying a jar of strawberry jam or preserves, a loaf of bread, a container of icing with sprinkles, and doing homemade pop tarts. More money & more work, just as sugary, but with some real chunks of strawberries!

[@suzannestrickland1586]

"Flavored" that little word saves a lot of companies from fasle advertising claims.

[@reuben1798]

I checked the boxes don’t say “Flavored”. I guess depends on the boxes?

[@itsgonnabeanaurfromme]

It's not false advertising then. It's a consumer's fault if they actually think chicken flavored means real chicken.

[@khain147]

In the UK by law if a package says it's "something flavoured" it must contain the "something" ingredient, but if it says "something flavour" then it doesn't have to and can be artificially flavoured

[@Business_Memo]

​@@itsgonnabeanaurfrommeYour comment was smart-flavored.

[@wrichard11]

​@@khain147yep

[@becky3983]

Regarding the Kellog's cereal, it's not just that it's *up to* 20%. I would have said the most misleading bit is that the children are compared, not to other cereal brands, but to children who ate *no breakfast*. Kellog's is basically making the statement, "eating food is better for you than not eating food".

[@theformalmooshroom9147]

Yea I found that odd too

[@helentee9863]

Yup. Knew that was coming 💀

[@muhammad2uneeb]

Exactly!

[@SvobodovaEva]

It should be compared to a proper healthy breakfast but we all know it would never get any results in their favor

[@isabellaloft3124]

It is also an issue with new medicines that are approved for treating something where an already proven medicine exists. Because they do not compare to the already existing, they compare to placebo. How would you know which is more effective of the two, since they are both compared against a placebo, but not against each other.

[@tanithetiger]

It's nice to see Kellogs is maintaining their company history of making unhinged health claims about cereal. Never forget your roots 😭

[@notconvincedgranny6573]

Yeah, they are the company that began based on corn flakes being a bland food designed to shut down sexual desire - so your life would be as passionless as your diet.

[@icarusbinns3156]

And yogurt enemas

[@veryberry39]

Joke's on them, corn flakes are my aphrodisiac. (Not really. I do like them though, for some weird reason.)

[@TheTartKnight]

Beats eugenics any time of the day at least!

[@bunk95]

Kellogg’s in fictional. The fiction is used to [market] portions of the slave system of course.

[@felinemoonchild]

Anyone else remember the 90s commercials where all the cereals were "part of" a complete breakfast? And then showed on the table a complete breakfast, which looked like it had 7 courses???

[@DarthPerkins]

It looked like a Medieval banquet, with piles of toast and bacon. But always the cereal at the front of the table.

[@felinemoonchild]

@@DarthPerkins 🤣💯

[@trevrah]

I remember that!

[@abiean222]

it was the classic big breakfast that no one eats in movies and tv shows.

[@Roddy556]

​@abiean222 it was probably part of the marketing too, like this product is eaten by people who take breakfast seriously.

[@Elisekisses]

As someone who can't eat apple, I've noticed that A LOT of other fruit products (like "strawberry juice" for example) are mostly apple and only contain a bit of the fruit that's being advertised. Always check ingredient labels.

[@KasumiRINA]

Oh I thought it's only cheap local supermarket brands here in Eastern Europe do that, apparently not. Checking packaging is just good in general. Only ONE brand I found that had tomato juice that's freshly made and not from powder. It was also unsalted. The ingredient list was just that, tomatoes. (And no, you can't make a conservation of that quality at home because tomatoes need either industrial processing OR boiling, home made tomato juice will spoil if not consumed ASAP).

[@westzed23]

I am allergic to apples so I have to read all labels carefully. Also, ingredients can change over time. Because of shipping problems during covid lockdown many products had to change their ingredients. So keep reading those labels!

[@notatallfunctional]

The most common and heavily used “filler juice” I’ve noticed is pear.

[@nailsofinterest]

Yeah and white grape juice. Often used instead of syrup in things like fruit cups.

[@westzed23]

@@nailsofinterest Yes, because one in our house is allergic to grapes.

[@Scytherman]

Absolutely incredible statement by Kellogs saying "eating breakfast makes you more attentive than not eating breakfast" and then having half the kids in the study not even show any benefit at all.

[@0Jenna7]

So half the kids in that study after eating their "breakfast" were just as bad off as the kids who ate nothing at all. That's really bad. It basically means that their cereal is a nutritional void.

[@abiean222]

@@0Jenna7 well, i do know that eating a big bowl of cereal only holds off my hunger for about an hour or so, so nutritional void checks out.

[@TUUK2006]

If you take the time, you'd be shocked about most scientific studies. If you see claims about study results, go and read the details of the study for yourself and make up your own mind. It's scary, especially in medicine, what is claimed about the results of the study and what the detailed report actually tells you.

[@shimmershine6902]

@@LTNetjak Idc whoever invented the idea of putting milk with some kind of grain should get props for it because it was one of the best ideas ever

[@deilylyrret]

You don't actually need breakfast

[@boofriggityhoo]

I left the US for several years, and one of the biggest reverse-culture shocks when I came back was the absolutely unhinged, misleading and in-your-face food marketing. My husband for example was looking for a protein shake, and I pointed out that my ensure shakes had twice the protein per serving than most brands he was looking at, in addition to having more vital nutrients, fiber, less sugar...above all, they were much cheaper and taste quite nice. But most people would never know this because they're not marketed towards the fitness focused as a protein shake, they're marketed towards the elderly or people who struggle to eat enough solid foods as nutritional supplement. They aren't even placed in the same aisle -- someone looking for a decent protein shake would never know that they're being charged double for an objectively inferior product for no other reason than marketing.

[@fresanegra77]

Thank you for this

[@Jessica-nb1wf]

living in japan, i found it shocking that there is no nutritional label like America. they have ingredients listed but not their percentages. Sugar isn't listed anywhere but the ingredient list. they've got some percentages of things but none of it related to anything worth noting. Its infuriating for those who are looking for low to no sugar products

[@Ihavepinkeye]

I used ensure to get me out of my ED. It helped me every time I relapsed.

[@stephgreen3070]

I remember the 100% apple juice I used to buy once in awhile had a blurb on the label by a “nurse”, picture and credentials and everything, saying that juice counts a a serving of fruit/veg for your kids…so drink up!” Drove me batty. I’m not a health nut, but even I know that fruit juice isn’t the same as eating an apple.

[@boofriggityhoo]

@@Jessica-nb1wf You do get to see the grams per serving of sugar, carbs, salt etc. on the nutrition labels of foods here -- It's just not the same as the ingredients list. It's a lot better than nothing and is super helpful when you want to check something like the sugar content, but admittedly, they still make it hard for people to understand -- I've seen many times where the "recommended serving" of a snack was unrealistically small (e.g. half a portion of an individually wrapped item) so their nutritional label could appear more healthy. Quaker oats shamelessly wrote that their instant oatmeal "now has "33% less sugar!" when really, they just shrunk the portions by 33% and changed nothing. It's honestly ridiculous, and should be illegal. But they get away with it a lot -- breakfast food items like cereals are probably some of the worst with that, but kids snacks are not far behind.

[@Avyrsoul]

Thank you, a lady in Illinois, for your constant vigilance.

[@ladymacbethofmtensk896]

Constant "vigilance" is certainly right! I believe that there is but ONE lady in Illinois filing all these lawsuits. Scratch LADY, because this woman is a bloody KAREN.

[@PhilipWester]

That lady's name? Mad-Eye Moody.

[@ladymacbethofmtensk896]

@@PhilipWester I thought that her name was Dolores Umbridge.

[@roualhoujeiri5905]

She probably doesn’t care but was just trying to earn easy money😂

[@coryman125]

On a similar note I love the "suggested serving" label on food boxes. Like they can't show you a picture of food that isn't what you're getting, so instead they say "yeah, this bottle of lime juice? We suggest you serve it by having a photogenic pile of nicely sliced limes"

[@johndododoe1411]

And then they somehow have to use the same line when there's something obviously separate like a plate or piece of bread in the picture .

[@thecrispymaster]

My favourite is when they're giving the "nutrition" stats on the front of a box of sweets and it's for a serving, only for you to flip over to their back and see that their definition of a serving is like 3 wine gums 😂. Ah, so that's why those numbers looked quite low!

[@Goabnb94]

"...than kids who ate no breakfast" so did they test other breakfasts at all, or were they proving that eating literally anything to give children full bellies, would have a marked improvement in attentiveness? Sounds like its got nothing to do with frosted mini-wheats.

[@spyryal]

A good comparisson would have been other cereals. If conducting a study only one factor should be changed, so using different kinds of breakfast (ex. toast, apples, etc) would've nullified the study. They'd have to use the same kind and amount of milk, and the same amount of cereal. But other cereal brands or kinds.

[@tsurugizaki]

Yeah as soon as I heard that I was shocked. I wonder if they would've gotten away with it if the claim hadn't been so exaggerated. Although on a side note it's amazing how apparently half of the kids performed just as well on an empty stomach.

[@whatever6377]

"Our cereal is better than nothing lol"

[@ParanoidDrone]

That's exactly what they're doing. You'll also note that ads like to say stuff like "Frosted Flakes is a part of this complete breakfast" over a picture of eggs, toast, fruit, bacon, juice, and a bowl of cereal. You could take the cereal out of the equation entirely and it would still be a good breakfast (maybe swap out the juice for water), so it's effectively meaningless.

[@koalaeucalyptus]

yep, that was the first thing I thought lol

[@niceguy191]

Kellogg's: "Did we say it improves kids' attentiveness? We meant it improves kid's attentiveness. We found one kid that just can't focus without the sweet-wheat flavour of Frosted Mini Wheats"

[@lbatemon1158]

😂😂😂

[@sarahp8937]

Haha that's brilliant

[@smjaiteh]

Kellogg’s: Making snake oil health claims about bland grainy foods for over 100 years.

[@theformalmooshroom9147]

Legit. I think it's them that has a weird culty origin story and all

[@Asharra12]

Bland, grainy and SUPER sugary foods 😂

[@miriamwhite9688]

​@theformalmooshroom9147 they really do, Behind the Bastards did a hilarious and troubling episode on it and I definitely recommend, ole John Kellog really needed therapy 😅

[@nari5161]

@@theformalmooshroom9147 yeah, kellogg's flakes, part of an anti-mastabutory breakfast

[@theformalmooshroom9147]

@miriamwhite9688 Ah ok I was thinking I was right, I remembered it from a cult podcast episode, but I couldn't remember the whole thing, just the association. I've heard of them before, I must look them up.

[@Sunprism]

When I heard how few strawberries were in strawberry poptarts, I was absolutely shocked! I didn't know there were any!

[@starcherry6814]

Ikr its ridiculous Just add the strawberries We know they have the money

[@arielthemermaid3576]

@@starcherry6814using real fruit isn’t generally an issue of cost, it’s an issue of shelf life. They’d have to add more preservatives to make sure they don’t rot while sitting in the packaging, and then people would just complain about “too many preservatives.” Y’all need to stop holding processed foods to these ridiculous health standards. They’re literally just candy/junk food. If you want a strawberry, eat a damn strawberry, not strawberry flavored candy.

[@starcherry6814]

@@arielthemermaid3576 In this case we're not talking about candy. Poptarts are already filled w/ jam. Which is a preservative. So why not instead replace the pear and apple preservative w/ strawberry.

[@ruthmaier755]

Ditto🤣🤣🤣

[@roualhoujeiri5905]

@@starcherry6814 I think jam in a jar has a different shelf life than jam in a cookie (or whatever pop tarts are made of)!

[@VeritasAbsoluta]

When I was on the World Food aisle in Tesco a few years ago (possibly 10 years ago now I'm thinking about it) I noticed that the imported PopTarts all had this little blue sticker on the front. When I peeled it back I found that it was covering the absurd claim that the flavoured-sugar-filled pastries were "A good source of vitamins and minerals". Clearly it was a claim that would absolutely not fly in the UK, but in the US they had gotten away with it for who knows how long.

[@ladymacbethofmtensk896]

Because, in the U.S. moralists have a tendency to try to end sales of any product children can possibly enjoy.

[@user-uv2cp1qd1j]

The UK (thankfully) has pretty harsh rules for food advertising. Imported food (from America obviously but even Australia) have special added labels on them with better ingredient info. Showing that they’re WAY too full of sugar, fat, carbs etc

[@ladymacbethofmtensk896]

@@user-uv2cp1qd1j Meanwhile, the UK is still Europe's fattest country, which tells me that making more rules is fixing nothing.

[@user-uv2cp1qd1j]

@@ladymacbethofmtensk896 euros need to catch up then. UK NUMBER 1 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@duckeh1952]

​@@ladymacbethofmtensk896I am pretty sure Finns are Europes fattest country, we used to be... Or maybe UK has gone ahead of us.

[@Matthew-gl6ni]

I heard Starbucks is getting sued because their designer drinks with acai, dragonfruit, and passionfruit do not contain those fruits and they had the nerve to say "no reasonable person would actually think they are in there". like these companies are out of control.

[@snowparody]

Wait you can't be fr, i don't drink Starbucks but if that's true, that's truly unhinged lmao

[@Matthew-gl6ni]

@@snowparody yup it's a whole thing. Totally crazy they think people won't expect fruits in the name to be IN the drink.

[@BiBiren]

they did once put olive oil in their drinks.

[@janedoe6704]

I agree with this to a degree but it goes to show, you have to read the label which is something everyone would be doing anyway. I never thought strawberry poptarts actually had ANY strawberries in them at all so I dont feel scammed. The ingredients are right there on the back.

[@veryberry39]

@@janedoe6704 I've never read the ingredients on Poptarts, but I definitely never thought they had fruit anywhere in them. Or if they did, it was some silly "from concentrate" stuff. XD

[@JesseAnderson]

Wow Kelogg's marketing people really dropped the ball over and over again for a while there

[@ivanpetrov5255]

Kelogg's marketing recruitment requirements: must he a glutton for punishment.

[@fatguy9]

They probably made more money compared to how much they paid

[@vanillaicecream2385]

their whole company is based off shitty lies

[@IDontSuckAtLifeakaJanis3975]

General Mills must have sent someone in to sabotage their company in order to try and take out the competition.

[@shades909]

@@fatguy9 Not probably, for sure. The would not have done it so many times if it didn't bring them money, no matter how incompetent someone can be, someone else would have fired that person fast if it made them lose money. That kind of practice is really common in video game, sadly unlike in the food industry nothing much is done about the companies that do that.

[@Kriseiri]

wasn't ready for Dave to hit us with the Blue Steel

[@Kelvin_Foo]

Let Dave cook!

[@janemiettinen5176]

I know! And it was pretty good too, tho Zoolander still has the best one :)

[@LeesaDeAndrea]

I saw a video today where a man in the UK tasted a blueberry muffin soda. But the main juice used in the soda was apple juice at 40%. The blueberry was a mere 3% of all the ingredients. I've bought fried pies that claimed to have a fruit filling but we're completely lacking in a single morsel of fruit and the filling was a fruit flavored gel. I'm so tired of these corporations ripping off we consumers and also their employees with low wages & unsafe work places.

[@thegriffinnews]

Do you mean atomicshrimp?

[@5skdm]

​@@thegriffinnews100% atomic shrimp, he made a video on it 3 weeks ago, same as the comment being posted 3 weeks ago

[@alanl.5691]

Recently I bought some candy corn which said "made with real honey!" on the package. The honey came after the mineral oil in the ingredients list; they literally put one tiny drop of honey in the batch just so they could say that on the package and trick anyone who didn't read the ingredients into thinking the candy is healthier or higher quality than it is.

[@emmanvries]

What was the brand?

[@sweethysteria8737]

To be every so slightly fair, a little honey can go a long way when it comes to flavoring stuff, not quite as strong as vanilla extract but still pretty strong

[@Nylak-Otter]

​​@@sweethysteria8737 Oh man, I agree and disagree. It can be a strong taste, but on the other hand I'll eat straight-up honey comb and never find it overpowering. But a bag of Skittles is like, wow, way too sweet! 😂 If I want something flavored like honey, I just make it and add the honey myself anymore.

[@guspaz]

Honestly, Nature Valley gets a pass because they literally put the percentages of Oats (60%) and Honey (3%) right on the ingredients list. Because they specifically give the percentage, I think that a reasonable consumer can evaluate that for themselves. It's stuff like pop tarts where they don't really tell you how much strawberry (and you have to sort of derive it yourself from the order and salt and such) that's unacceptable.

[@lizie1110]

That's not Nature Valley doing this out of the goodness of their heart though. It's EU legislation that if your packaging has text or images suggesting your product contains certain ingredients you have to specify what percentage of your product consists of those ingredients. Nature Valley probably uses the same packaging in all English language markets so it'll comply with the different laws of all those places. Including EU law if they want to sell the product with the same packaging in an EU market like Ireland.

[@renatoramos8834]

Images speak louder. It's obviously false advertising.

[@sh4deslayer564]

It's a shame all companies aren't required to do this. I guess it's probably because that would essentially be giving away their recipe?

[@CharleneCTX]

Depends on where you are. The bars in the US don't have the percentages.

[@yamaxguchi8466]

​@renatoramos8834 so dramatic 😂 it has the right amount of honey, not false at all

[@ijlayugan4149]

Watching Ann's videos improved my attentiveness by 50%

[@rhyfelwrDuw]

Lol - definitely same here!!

[@missmoxie9188]

You win the comments

[@Nugire]

"Since this is a statement that refers only to you and is indeed not a claim that it would work for other people I come to the conclusion that this comment is not guilty of false advertisement."

[@embee7434]

As a data analyst, I can confirm your stated stat is 98% likely to be achievable by ensuring you construct the correct data logic to remove the offending outliers. 😉

[@yazdhenab.]

Ann, pin this comment, it made my day !

[@ijlayugan4149]

I could listen to a 2-hour food essay video by Ann and would not, even one second, get bored.

[@wombatdk]

So true, was just about to post the same. Her presentation, demeanor and voice are just so pleasant, informative and just... top notch. Understandable, relatable, clearly presented. Love it.

[@rhyfelwrDuw]

Same here! I love her videos! So informative.

[@drcroissant7865]

@@rhyfelwrDuwy

[@dannii_L]

2-hour food essay video when, Ann?

[@andregon4366]

True, I went through this 10 minutes video like it was 2.

[@sunnyboy9109]

"The average consumer spends less than 13 seconds deciding which product to buy at the supermarket." I'm definitely bringing that average up

[@Ineeee]

There’s a new law in Argentina (and other countries too, I’ve seen these in Mexico as well) where products high in sugar, fats, sodium will have a black octagon on it saying so. If you google it as “black octagon label sugar” it should pop up. I think you’d find it interesting!

[@kari7966]

mexican chips with the “excessive sugar”

[@nutella_wewerehere]

I love when I travel to Mexico and most of the foods sold in the stores all have 4 black octagons on them 💀💀

[@datboi1102]

I wish we had those in the U.S. It would save me a lot of time

[@Acide950]

Well, I know now why my mother thinks all cereal companies are just lying about how good their products are.

[@MLB021285]

Well, they are. Cereal should not be considered food but candy. So I guess you must have a very smart mother.

[@SvobodovaEva]

It’s candy with extra fibre. Nothing healthy about it.

[@theunnamedaccount4009]

As a general rule of thumb, if something has over 8% sugar I only get it if I'm going to have it as a dessert. This covers almost the entirety of all cereals

[@swisski]

⁠One fine day I decided at the supermarket in NZ to look for a cereal with no added sugar. Impossible. Even Rice Bubbles and weet-bix had it. The only cereal on the shelf without added sugar is rolled oats.

[@theunnamedaccount4009]

@@swisski One of the better cereal brands I found was freedom foods, but even then their cereals tend to have ~5-6% w/w sugar in them (also I'm Aussie so I'm not sure if it'll be in NZ as well)

[@TheBioChemics]

In Europe we got a nice little thing regarding our food laws. It's "quantitative Ingredient declaration" or "QUID" for short. It basically demands from food manufacturers, that they have to state the precise percentage of a ingredient in the ingredient list or somewhere clearly visible, if said ingredient is either stated in the name of the product or if there are pictures of the ingredient on the box. Both would have been the case for the pop tarts and the cheerios. Pretty handy thing, if a consumers wants to keep an eye out for products with empty promises

[@birdzilla01]

That sounds amazing. I wish we had it in the U.S.!

[@TheBioChemics]

@@birdzilla01 It's quite handy, if you know your way around ingredient lists and want a product to live up to your expectations :D

[@laurao3274]

Is that a law in the EU? I'm in America, but I work in a store that sells food from about 20 different European countries. Many of them seem to have different labeling conventions, some of which have even less info than American food labels. And I've noticed that basically all of the food packages have pictures showing the main ingredients or flavors of the product. But that's not necessarily for deception purposes, so much as the fact that they're selling their products in multiple countries. The ingredient labels are all in at least 3 languages, sometimes more than 10.

[@TheBioChemics]

@@laurao3274 yes, it is an european law. Regulation No. 1169/2011 to be precise. But as far as I'm concerned, it only applies for the european market. If products are manufactured for the american, this law might not be applicable and the label must only comply with U.S. law. But I'm not entirely sure about this. What are some of the other languages on these labels? Maybe the products are also sold in other countries mexico and canada, so french and spanish for example, would make sense on the labels

[@arenkai]

I've learned that if you're rich enough you can lie and cheat with little consequences as long as you're not committing a financial crime.

[@TiaKatt]

As long as you're not committing a financial crime *against other rich people* at least.

[@vincentknws]

Actually they just have really good lawyers who find the loop holes.

[@hoaxygen]

@@vincentknws Or stall out the courts so long that the other party runs out of funds. What a justice system!

[@ashildrtheswift3028]

​@@MegaFan5Fines are just price tags for crime

[@Minihood31770]

​@@MegaFan5is there? In both robbery and false advertising I no longer have money I otherwise would have. The only difference is that robbery involves things being taken behind your back, while false advertising has them lying to your face. Either way your stuff is gone without permission. The real difference of course is in terms of impact. False advertising claims settled for millions, so the damages could be even more than that! The average robbery takes, what? A wallet? Maybe a few hundred average depending on who gets targeted.

[@daisiesforghosts]

Honestly I hope there is more lawsuits. Our food here is ridiculously misleading and had WAY TOO MUCH SUGAR. As I get older the more I hate sugary things and I am seeing more clearly how sugary a lot of the US’s food is. It’s incredibly hard to lose weight when you’re poor and all you can afford are these processed foods.

[@evilsharkey8954]

They use salt and sugar to make up for the lack of real, flavorful ingredients. They accentuate other flavors, and they’re cheap.

[@dusklunistheumbreon]

I hope there's less lawsuits...and more criminal suits. If a company engages in false advertising or deceptive practices, it should put the c suite behind bars. It shouldn't only result in a tiny payment of less than a percent of their profits.

[@TUUK2006]

The US is a country that puts sugar in BREAD! It's the basis for their economy. They make money from marketing unhealthy products, someone makes money from you buying that product and someone makes a lot of money from treating the resulting health conditions. Companies win, people lose. As long as Americans drive everywhere to get their next fix of a comedic portion of unhealthy food, companies win. To be honest, a country full of people too stupid to figure this out are not a group of people I have too much sympathy for.

[@yamaxguchi8466]

​@@dusklunistheumbreonso dramatic 🙄 we have real world problems going on...

[@dusklunistheumbreon]

@@yamaxguchi8466 Are you implying that every part of this video was talking about a fictional world?

[@jessejones6700]

The frosted wheats claim bothered me so much as a kid! Even as a kid I saw the flaw with comparing it to /no/ breakfast

[@ladymacbethofmtensk896]

You must have been a real dork.

[@testerwulf3357]

@@ladymacbethofmtensk896And you must’ve been an idiot 🤷

[@whitepaint7870]

As much as i like the debunks, i am really enjoying the different types of videos. You never know what shes going to talk about next.

[@MyChannel773]

i love when the channel branches out! it keeps things interesting 😂

[@Eventide215]

Yeah variety channels (with a generalized theme) are far better than a channel that only does the same thing over and over. Like similarly one of my favorite content creators is Safiya Nygaard because of the same thing. She may post rarely, but every time she does you have absolutely no idea what's coming next. Someone (or a group) though that like plays the same game for years just gets boring and stale.

[@New_Wave_Nancy]

So Pop-Tarts are basically homeopathic strawberry - the goo "remembers" the essence of Strawberry. 😂

[@ladymacbethofmtensk896]

Is there a Christian Science strawberry, which helps imaginary nutritional deficiencies?

[@roughsketcher8722]

As someone struggling with ADHD (and a funky school schedule that makes focusing on my schoolwork harder), a cereal that “improves attentiveness by up to 20%” sounds like it’s bordering on magic.

[@il_veltro]

Dusted with confectioner's Adderall 💊😋

[@AnnaReed42]

My mom fed my brother (we both have ADHD but his was much worse than mine as a child) a lot of off-brand mini wheats when he was a kid, and I'm curious if she saw this marketing! This was well before 2008, though, so that certainly wasn't the reason she bought them in the first place.

[@alexfarkas3881]

@@il_veltro as a fellow ADHDer this made me laugh out loud, thank you 😂

[@slitheen3]

The fact they also compared it to kids who didn't eat breakfast at all.... well, duh they're gonna be more attentive. Eating anything is better than nothing. Even on the days I eat a garbage breakfast like a single piece of buttered toast, my focus and emotional stability are way better than the days I eat no breakfast (Though also as an adhd haver what REALLY helps my attentiveness is ritalin & regular exercise)

[@bunk95]

ADHD is fictional. Do you/others think and act as if that is untrue?

[@Tomnickles]

In the end, losing all that money probably meant nothing to Kellogg. Which is the sad part. They won't change because of it. They just had to rebrand their stuff because people will keep buying it. Although how they can put "HELPS IMMUNITY", as a serious thing, on a box of Cocoa Krispies is beyond my comprehension lol

[@ladymacbethofmtensk896]

And the health activists will never rest until all meals are reduced to bland, flavourless, but highly nutritious, slop.

[@jennyjohn704]

@@ladymacbethofmtensk896 You don't have a clue, do you? Healthy food can taste at least as good as over-procecessed, sugary crap.

[@ladymacbethofmtensk896]

@@jennyjohn704 I DO have much more than a mere clue, actually. Of course I agree that fresh meat and produce can taste truly excellent, but not everyone believes that. Most Americans, especially far outside the major metropolitan regions really give no indication that they are so much as slightly interested in trying anything beyond the hyper-processed and over sweetened garbage. Sometimes, it is not enough to be right, and if your opponent does not share the same definitions for words with you, how right you are matters very little, until such time as you can communicate with him in terms he understands.

[@tgcseela]

I feel like I need to share your videos with my compliance and ethics team; I often ping them as a marketing person within my regular job duties, and I just feel like they would feel seen and heard. Thank you for doing what you do! You approach a very complicated legal situation from a balanced perspective that makes sense to us closer to the frontlines in a way that makes sense to those who are even a bit less legally involved.

[@Hailstormand]

Before anyone would like to seriously trust 'health claims' from a food company, they would do well to remember that Kelloggs' was founded by a guy who thinks eating corn flakes would reduce, and indeed, entirely prevent the urge to, ahem, pleasure themselves.

[@tsm688]

Not sure how someone who died 70 years ago is relevant to food claims today. Modern food regulations didn't even exist when he was making those claims.

[@Scooterbeerrun]

It might, have you every just ate bland food day in and day out cuz I did with plain oatmeal once and I had no motivation to do anything because of how dreary my daily life was

[@chlorophyllheart]

@@Scooterbeerrun Aww, please flavour your oatmeal. I love it with sultanas, soy milk, and maple syrup or honey.

[@bunk95]

Companies are fictional. If you think and act like that is untrue fictional advice might be taken as non-fiction advice.

[@tsm688]

@@bunk95 non sequitor of the day goes to

[@joerenzullo4257]

It's a result of how shockingly bad our food labeling laws (and their enforcement) are with respect to providing accurate information. One of my favorites: a single-serve bag of chips (marketed to put in lunchboxes for kids) that said 100 cals per serving. But the bag had 2.5 servings. Another, a can of soup that had "about 2" servings, but didn't specify how big a serving was. By rounding rules, that could be anywhere from 1.5 to 2.49. Along the same lines, allowing products that have less than half a gram of something to report that as 0 grams. The most extreme example is sugar packets that, according to the label, have no sugar in them. Actually finding out how much of anything is in a product should not be this challenging. We allow far too much latitude to companies to pull... creative marketing stunts.

[@adde9506]

You can start a class action lawsuit on those single serve chip bags. That's illegal now. If it is likely to be eaten in one sitting, the nutrition label must be for the entire packet. Some will do all and a portion side by side, like ramen, which apparently was always intended to be two portions and not as a marketing thing.

[@Nagol93]

Another big offender is those oil cooking sprays. Nearly all of them advertise 0 calories, yet the only ingredient inside is some type of oil (and maybe a propellant), which is calorically dense. The "trick" is they list a serving as a 1/4 second spray. 1/4s is a comically short amount of time. Like you would get no where near enough oil to do any sort of cooking. I dont have any evidence for these next numbers, but I'm willing to bet most people use 4x to 8x servings. AKA 1-2s sprays

[@shlatekkin]

Companies do deceptive things like this hoping they don't get caught. And when they do, they drag it out and/or settle. And it's not a major issue because they made WAAAAY more in profits than they paid on fines or settlements. Some companies (e.g. big pharma) continue to do things like this knowing they'll just pay out while they keep raking in money hand over fist.

[@theformalmooshroom9147]

Purdue pharma

[@rolfs2165]

And they always settle, because no matter how much it costs, it doesn't create precedence and they can try again with a slightly different lie next time.

[@jolo3118]

If Frosted Flakes are "lightly sweetened" then my Death Wish Coffee is "lightly caffeinated".

[@snakehandler87]

It's refreshing to hear other people actually stop and take the time to look at labels. It also surprises me when people with chronic health issues such as diabetes etc won't look at a product other than the front and not for the nutrition value.. I wish people care more in general

[@ellieban]

The first thing Kellogg did when he invented cornflakes was also invent the idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This behaviour is in the company’s DNA 🙄

[@DrawciaGleam02]

Oh really?

[@tcsnowdream9975]

He also had some very interesting theories on… uhh… well… that a bland morning brekky would stop people from choking the chicken.

[@dand1253]

Don't forget that Kellogg was also obsessed with peoples' bowels, and at one point had a screaming argument with a priest who gently suggested that God, being perfect, would not necessarily need to have a colon. The original purpose of corn flakes was to try and achieve Kellogg's hypothetical ideal of what precise substances (and in what specific formats) a person would need to eat in order to have medically optimal poops. Mr. _Graham_ was the OG of claiming that flavorful foods promoted 'unseemly passions' and could lead to that most horrific of insanities: *_masturbation!_* Kellogg just picked up what Graham had already put down and added it to his own colon-based view of the world.

[@DawnDavidson]

@@dand1253I’ve always wondered how fast Mr Graham is spinning in his grave, knowing that his crackers are being used in combo with marshmallows and cheap milk chocolate to create s’mores, the absolute best part about camping with a bunch of other kids.

[@lindsayf9225]

I mean it is depending on what you deem important. It tells your brain that it is time to become active. But your body needs protein first thing in the morning, not carbohydrates, so he was wrong with the corn flakes.

[@hopehoping]

I love how we never know where you're going to take us - historical cooking, mini cooking, exposing dubious "hacks", food science, corporate chicanery, cake rescues, unexpected by-ways... brilliant, whichever way you go! Thanks for being such a positive force on the internet.

[@ijlayugan4149]

9:07 I love how creative you are with your videos. The pie chart is a very good touch

[@HowToCookThat]

Thanks ijlayuguan4149 I'm glad you liked my cake tin pie chart.

[@embee7434]

Agreed! I totally loved that!

[@GyroCannon]

There really should be either harsher punitive monetary damages or light prison sentences for consistent false advertising like this.

[@caffiend81]

"The average consumer spends less than 13 seconds deciding what to buy at the supermarket" I feel called out. Pretty sure it takes me 13 *minutes* to make a decision. 🤣

[@mariokarter13]

The most effective method is what I like to call the "lawyer lie." That's when you tell the truth while heavily implying a falsehood. "We never said carrot cake was a diet food, we just said carrots are part of a healthy diet and our cake just so happens to have them."

[@danielcrafter9349]

You mean the other way around, surely? Implying a false conclusion by saying nothing which is technically untrue?

[@niceguy191]

"Part of this complete breakfast" and there's a whole other breakfast in addition to the bowl of cereal....

[@mariokarter13]

@@danielcrafter9349 Ann's "Up to 50% Off" example is probably the closest to what I'm talking about. It's technically true, but the implication is misleading. I didn't tell the horse to drink, I just led it to some remarkably crisp and refreshing water. It chose to drink on its own.

[@veryberry39]

Weasel words! I learned about that in 8th grade Economics (back in the 90s), and it's literally the only thing that stuck with me. lol

[@aechawk]

So important to read ingredient labels. Food advertising always seem to push the boundaries of what is legal and find loop holes all the time. I guess it is the same with all advertising, hair products, skin products, supplements, etc.

[@andyjohnson4907]

There's actually a difference between "flavour" and "flavoured" (at least in the UK). "Flavoured" means that it contains the ingredient, and "flavour" means that it doesn't, and has some kind of synthetic analogue. There was a brand of crisps in the seventies that claimed they were "bacon flavoured", but contained no actual bacon, so they were forced to change their packaging or face the wrath of Trading Standards. The flavour/flavoured thing is something very familiar to most vegetarians.

[@Wimblefish]

It's like Bisto gravy granules are vegetarian because they are Beef 'flavoured' rather than Beef 'flavour' 😂 *I typed the while trying to multitask and posted without checking. I have corrected myself in a comment below 😂

[@embee7434]

Fascinating! I'll be looking into it is the same in the US.

[@Hermititis]

​@@Wimblefish, isn't that the opposite of the comment you replied to? If they are "beef flavorED" they contain beef; if they were "beef flavor", it's synthetic & could be vegetarian?

[@Wimblefish]

@Hermititis you're right, I was distracted when I pressed send and didn't double check my own sentence lol. It'll teach me for trying to multitask 😂 *correction of my earlier comment* Bisto Beef Gravy is suitable for vegetarians as they are Beef 'flavour, not Beef 'flavoured'

[@MorbidEel]

Then there is "natural" flavor ...

[@FocusingOnChrist]

This is why we need to keep educating about understanding food labels. Companies wouldnt try clever marketing claims if they knew that the majority of people read the fine print.

[@benjamindare5590]

I really like your videos Mrs Reardon. My father is a food scientist and worked with members of the food council in the 80's and 90's. It's refreshing to see someone that reads and understands the order of an ingredients list and what that means. And I must say your cakes are phenomenal.

[@seleniebeanie]

I wonder if there will ever come a time when the food companies are completely transparent about what's in their products... I highly doubt it, but we can dream! Thank you for your wonderful videos! They always cheer me up when I'm feeling down. Keep up the great work! :D

[@HowToCookThat]

Hope you have a great weekend seleniebeanie

[@seleniebeanie]

@@HowToCookThat Thank you so much! Same to you! ❤️

[@shadowheartart3898]

I don't think so, sadly. If they're completely transparent, they have to change their recipes to contain real food. Which would increase prices so much, that most people wouldn't buy it (forcing them to increase further, until nobody would buy it)

[@adde9506]

The scary part is that they are SO MUCH BETTER than they used to be.

[@tsm688]

The ingredients list and nutritional label is right there for you to read. That is a thing they can't muck up without really having to pay hell. It's worth becoming familiar with them. Especially the sneaky synonyms for sugar.

[@crystalkerstal]

0:23 Dave is so iconic and I’m here for it!!! 😩😭😭😭

[@yuaelt]

The thing that shocked me the most about the cereal "study" case was that they were comparing the attentiveness of children who ate their product against those who... didn't eat breakfast at all! This kind of study only goes to show that eating anything in the morning has some effect on attentiveness (although lower than one might expect), and absolutely nothing about the effect of eating cereal in particular, let alone their brand of cereal. And considering how normalized eating breakfast is in the western culture, the fact this study chose to have a control group of kids not eating at all rather than eating a different meal raises a question of how independent this "independent study" was... I mean, surely if the control group had the equivalent weight in apples and milk, or even just milk without the cereal, it would show the effect of eating Kellogg's much better, but hey, they might actually lose that one so naaaaah :P. All in all, Kellogg's sure had some nerve to put it on their boxes!

[@lorddestrustor8828]

They probably *did* try the study against a competitor or some random actual food... at first. But then the results kept making them look bad or at best neutral so they kept lowering the bar until they managed to finagle some extreme scenario where their mediocrity could shine before committing to making any claims.

[@MyChannel773]

@@lorddestrustor8828yep… eating breakfast definitely does help alertness, except when it’s too sugary. the study just proved that the only thing worse than the sugar crash was no breakfast at all!

[@GeneralArin]

I remember one study was reported as "ice cream for breakfast is good for you!" And same case. Only compared against water. Anything for breakfast is better than nothing

[@MorbidEel]

@@lorddestrustor8828 You are assuming they were trying to conduct an honest study. It could have been a "covering their asses" study so they would have started with the conclusion and tried to work backwards to design a study that could support their claims. This is just from my own current experience as an older person but they also left out some other important factors. For example if the children are well fed enough during other meals it won't make a difference. Not sure how true that would be with a different metabolism at a younger age though. However different cultures around the world do have different patterns for their meals

[@mif_sovremennosty]

What that meant to me is that eating at least something for breakfast makes your attention better. It doesn't matter, what do you eat(well, maybe does, I don't know for sure), what matters is do you eat or not. From my experience this is absolutely true, I NEED to eat something or else I feel like a jellyfish on a sand.

[@hannahk1306]

Something which surprised me about the ingredients lists you showed was that the common allergens weren't *in bold*! That's been law here for many years now and I thought it was now a fairly standard practice. Interestingly products that are sold here seemed to have identical packaging apart from the lack of bold allergens (and presumably the local headquarters address, etc). It really irritates me when companies advertise things that are *technically* true, but give the wrong impression based on general misunderstandings that the general public have. For example, lots of people think that honey is healthier for you than sugar without realising that honey *is* sugar, so by advertising a product as being sweetened with honey it gives the impression of it being healthy. This kind of advertising actually makes me less likely to buy a product, because I feel like they're trying to dupe me.

[@testerwulf3357]

Whilst honey is sugar it also has a bunch of other stuff in it that pure sugar just doesn’t have..so it kinda IS healthier! If you’re gonna consume sugar why not consume other necessary nutrients with it?

[@thespector2685]

I'm allergic to soy and some products don't even put soy in the allergen list!! I have to look through the ingredients list to check for soy becuase they don't mark it as an allergy.

[@integralinsanity1641]

It IS missleading. Companies always do this and it's always bad and sometimes it's outrageous.

[@thunderwolf4237]

YES! I'm so glad you brought up the "Save up to" sales. As soon as I see a sale that advertises those words specifically, I already know it's going to be a waste of time and I don't even bother. I also want to say, I am anemic, and it's so hard to find decent iron vitamins that aren't harsh on the stomach. Rice Krispy cereal has one of the highest iron contents I've seen, even higher than most foods and I notice an increase in energy. I'd love to see its effects on the body overtime and how well it helps rebuild iron in someone who is iron deficient. I see cereals get a bad wrap, and some of them should (sugary, food color content etc...), but I think some of them do have way more vitamins than even fruit does. Which is a problem in itself. Where has all the nutrition gone from regular grown foods?

[@ettinakitten5047]

It's because they're a) genetically selected for shelf stability rather than flavor or nutrition, and b) picked way underripe and ripen in shipping. If you want better fruit and veggies, buy local or grow your own.

[@whatever6377]

RICE KRISPIES of all things has a decent iron content?? :o I thought you could only get iron from like liver or blood

[@jwoolman5]

Be aware that the high iron contents listed for cereals are misleading. They use a form of iron that is not very well absorbed. Better to get a chelated form of iron as a supplement if you are deficient, or a prescription. If they used an easily absorbed form of iron in kid cereals, we would have a serious iron overdose problem on Saturday mornings, when the unsupervised kiddies chow down on several servings at once...

[@whatever6377]

@@jwoolman5 Ah, that explains it.

[@duckeh1952]

​@@whatever6377nuts, different beans and peas, mushrooms, spinach, broccoli, lentils and good plant based iron sources. Salmon has iron aswell, probably other wishes as well. Liver probably is one of most known.

[@MarcelWhy]

JUST exactly what i need: a dose of Ann to get me through the end of the week 🥳 thanks, love ❤

[@HowToCookThat]

Enjoy your weekend 😀

[@ariellelyons]

the frosted mini wheats claim is crazy because the control group wasn’t a different cereal, it was no breakfast at all. i would assume those kids with the frosted mini wheats were more attentive because they had any breakfast at all, not because of that specific cereal

[@corir207]

I think, it just shows that people are different. My daughter has a fabulous attention span without eating or drinking anything before 11am. Other children would feel absolutely famished before that and not be able to concentrate. So much for "scientific" proofs.

[@ettinakitten5047]

@@corir207 I mean, 50% of the kids showed no difference between the two conditions, so your daughter isn't unique.

[@Val.Kyrie.]

All food studies like this are rigged in the same way.

[@abiean222]

did they just have two groups, one with no breakfast and one where they have frosted mini wheats? because i feel like they should have had another group where they gave them a different breakfast, like scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage. you know, a big breakfast that isn't just cereal. see how that effects the kids.

[@crazydiamondmlp]

@@abiean222 The claim says "more attentive than children who ate no breakfast." The text is on the screen. THIS is the real problem I have with that claim- It's not specifically the frosted mini wheats that helped them focus, it was the fact that they HAD EATEN and therefore weren't hungry/fatigued/distracted about when they would get to eat. Mini Wheats could be replaced with literally any other food type (or, like you suggested, adding a third option of a different food of the same amount, and keeping the hungry kids as the control group), and the results would be the same or very similar. Kids who eat can focus better than kids whose bodies are sending them starvation signals.

[@GrubbsandWyrm]

Something I learned working at a grocery store. Ignore the front of the box. Immediately flip it over and look at the ingredients and nutrition information. The back of the box is information. The front is marketing. Allegedly

[@tsm688]

Absolutely, and pay attention to the weight. Sure you know but worth adding for the comments I think.

[@GrubbsandWyrm]

@tsm688 oh yeah. Shrinkflation is very real

[@beccasalt8960]

I've been noticing this myself a lot lately. I'm a curious person so I quite often look at the ingredients list and will sometimes google the obscure scientific names just to check what I'm actually eating. It's sad to me that advertising agencies get paid so well to bend the truth almost out of recognition. They certainly have a way with words but not in a way that I appreciate 😪

[@IDontSuckAtLifeakaJanis3975]

I worked at a bakery factory long ago and for a short time I was part of the cleaning crew. Around the large mixers there was sometimes a white substance that was hell to remove from the floor. It turned out to be xanthum gum that they added to the cookies and cream pies. I remember wondering, "if it's that difficult to remove from a floor with heavy soap, chemicals, and a power hose, what exactly does it do to ones digestive system?"

[@xero2715]

@@IDontSuckAtLifeakaJanis3975 It's literally just a chain of sugars.

[@helentee9863]

We have acids in our stomachs, so it's fine. And that's actually a natural ingredient, used as a stabiliser in a lot of ultra processed foods . It's some of the flavouring/colouring that's definitely 'off' particularly in the states where the rules aren't as strict as in Europe/much of the rest of the world.

[@IDontSuckAtLifeakaJanis3975]

@@helentee9863 I hear people in the states complain all the time; "at least Europe doesn't allow GMOs in their food. The US shouldn't either!"

[@tsurugizaki]

When additives get too much flak in the public eye they'll change the name it's listed as on the ingredients, or use something else that's technically a different chemical but very similar. It's so insidious.

[@darkhalf75]

Kellogg's has been pulling breakfast food that makes you more attentive in school for ages. In the 1950s, there was an ad for sugar-frosted flakes that had Judy falling asleep in class, messing up her maths. Suddenly, a bowl of sugar-laden breakfast cereal and she is top of the class, to quote comedian Jasper Carrot, "new rice crispy with smack, crack, and pot."

[@babayevsky]

In the EU, all food items must have the ingredients listed not only by weight but also indicate percentages, which is very helpful in reading the products

[@frances4309]

Thank you, Ann! I had my teen daughter watch the PopTart segment with me. To her, you are the top tier authority because you test your products/concepts then relate them in ways we all can understand. Kudos to this episode and your usual great work! (She admitted "Mom, you are right." concerning what I've told her for many years. Thanks for giving me street cred! *wink*)

[@mluna1237]

Just a note on the granola bars. Rolled oats contain fat (at a rate of ~2.5g fat/40g oats), so there's actually less vegetable oil than you showed (so possibly less sugar). I understand why you didn't bother including this since it just adds complication to an otherwise clear visual, but it does change the picture a little bit. For those granola bars in particular, I don't have an issue with the labeling for a few reasons. First, honey can be a pretty strong flavor, so as long as that flavor comes through, I'm fine with the actual amount of honey being low. Replacing some honey with sugar makes sense to me from an economics perspective since honey is much more expensive than sugar. Lastly, the ingredients list includes the exact percentage of honey in the recipe.

[@pcbassoon3892]

The selling point of those was the fiber content anyway, and you can't argue with that. Those things are denser than a neutron star.

[@blackcountryme]

Most smoothies have more sugar in than a can of coke.

[@chervilisbetterthancilantro]

Also, she's a baker. How does she expect to make baked goods without fat?

[@crowprincess656]

I worked in a verified labeling company that imported products to Mexico - it so surprising to see how lax the USA is with labeling regulations. For example, a product with an hexagon (represents either excess in calories, added sugar or fat) CANNOT have any “better for your health” claims, or how stuff that’s considered juice in the USA falls under “flavored beverage” here in Mexico. Wild

[@tsm688]

Interesting, has that changed recently? Mexico isn't generally hailed as a paragon of regulations and safety

[@Nattym34]

Just seen that Starbucks is facing a class action lawsuit because their refresher drinks don’t contain the fruit referenced in the dinks name. Strawberry açai has no açai in it and the mango Dragon fruit one has no mango in it.

[@rachelharris8352]

Yeah but it taste like it imagine if everyone told the truth all those drinks would be called suggar refresher or suggar drink or fake fruit drink lmao then no one would buy them

[@DustyMusician]

no wonder the mango dragonfruit never tasted like mango. i hate that one anyway

[@tymondabrowski12]

​@@rachelharris8352 then don't make stuff people don't want to drink? Or add actual fruits to those drinks?

[@LewisOfTheWest]

Wow!! I can't believe Kellogg's had so many lawsuits about misleading products, well maybe not that many compared to the amount of products they have but still. I wonder if any of their other products are like this; especially the ones that say or at least imply they are healthier than other products.

[@K1ngRaven]

Wait....... how was this comment left 23 hours ago?!?!

[@chewbacca7189]

@@K1ngRaven patrons get early access

[@K1ngRaven]

@@chewbacca7189 oh yeah, that makes sense

[@NameLast-c1n]

They can lie to you. When I was 8 I genuinely believed that red bull would give me wings so I spent all day trying to get hold of a can. No one will ever understand the absolute devastation I felt after finally getting my hands on it and realising I'd been lied to

[@kalo6661]

I'm surprised you didn't sue them.🤣

[@lbatemon1158]

​@@kalo6661 someone did sue Red Bull for this very reason. I feel sad for an 8 year old believing this claim and no adult in their life helping them realize it's false without them having to have some of that toxic sludge.

[@hoeblin]

@@lbatemon1158 they actually got sued for claiming they had numerous science studies backing it's ability to improve energy and performance but "people suing redbull for not giving them wings" sounds better for redbull

[@peacelovewar98]

That’s why Red Bulls slogan is now “Red Bull gives you wiiiiings” vs “Red Bull gives you wings.” Somehow switching it made it okay. I suppose because most people understand we can’t get wings from a drink, idk. But they were sued over the claim.

[@nahboi936]

when i was a kid i thought they meant redbull made you high, i went years thinking it had alcohol or some kind of drug in it until i was like 12 and one of my friends had redbull and i was like ??? it was kind of embarrassing tbh but she showed me the ingredients and while i still don’t think a 12 year old should be drinking it, obviously there’s no alcohol or *illegal* drugs in redbull 😭

[@drewthistlethwaite8909]

The state of Illinois is it’s own fever dream, but I adore the audacity and confidence to take on big companies like that

[@Turtletoots3]

How do hair product companies get around this? The ads are always implying that their conditioners will repair hair while they can't do more than improve appearance.

[@GamesFromSpace]

Isn't that a type of repair?

[@spyryal]

It entirely depends on the ingredients used. There are chemicals that can cover the hair shaft and fill in gaps, so somewhat "repairing" damaged hair. Silicones for example are great in that aspect, they are also somewhat washproof and aren't water soluble. It's not permanent, but that's not what the product claims. Or BTMS, it's a conditioning agent that leaves a very thin film on the hair, which helps it detangle and keeps it from getting frizzy.

[@TallTeenTurtle]

Conditioners can "repair" hair in the same way that sticking a broken plate back together with duct tape is "repairing" it. Technically true (its back in one piece) but they are relying on peoples perception of repair being better than their product can actually provide.

[@adde9506]

Probably because the consumer culture isn't the same. You like the way the product cleans your hair, or you move on to another product. With food, especially food for children, you have worry about the food being safe to eat and something your child actually WILL eat, to then find out that that food is lying to you about what is in it... IS it safe to eat?

[@tsm688]

lying about food can kill people. food regulations are a lot more strict for that reason.

[@MKisFeelinSpicy]

I love how clearly you explain everything in your videos. The visualizations in this video in particular were so helpful! I often feel like your videos teach me tools I can use in my day-to-day life.

[@CharGC123]

I did myself a huge favor and don't eat products and read labels, I just buy and eat real food like produce, whole grains, legumes, etc.

[@thebreakdownartist9260]

I tried a pop tart as an adult just to see what I was “missing out on” as a child … tasted like wallpaper paste with paper and sugar to me

[@joebot86]

Yhea, you were missing out on nothing. But, as an adult I dislike basically all the candy I liked as a kid

[@GeneralArin]

It didn't help that I'm pretty sure they stealthily changed the recipe and took out most of the filling since I was a kid. I'm still a sweet tooth and it's just not even passable anymore

[@Eventide215]

@@GeneralArinYeah that's happened with a lot of products. They keep stealthily changing little bits of recipes. Plus as you get older your taste buds do change. So both of those things combined you end up eating something like years later and just are disgusted by it. I know like as a kid I *loved* the Chef Boyardee cans of ravioli and such but as an adult they're gross. I also know for a fact they changed the recipe and it's so much thinner and oily now.

[@KBRoller]

Depends on the flavor. I still really like the raspberry ones (toasted) and the various chocolate flavored ones (room temperature).

[@adde9506]

I think I've only ever eaten one, in middle school, and it was awful back then too. It's amazing how many foods are only successful from nostalgia: Lucky Charms, Oreos, Lunchables... And only because kids eat with their imaginations.

[@jacobp.2024]

2:20 the funny thing is, I FEEL invigorated when I have a breakfast in the morning vs going without. I tend to work better, perform better, feel more energetic.. So the premise of the study being *no breakfast* vs. having Kellogg's is already disingenuous. There's no control cereals, no control breakfast, nothing. It's either the kids have calories to start their day or don't. Even if the Kelloggs study did prove a marked increase in some measure of academic performance, compared to some baseline established prior for those individuals, it wouldn't mean anything because it doesn't say anything about Kellogg's, just high carb breakfast in general.

[@corir207]

When I start reading the small prints, I always get so motivated to cook everything from scratch :)

[@gray_mara]

I went on a diet from the start of this year, cooking as much as I can from scratch. I buy ingredients, not products. I can eat sweets, so long as they're homemade. I've never had so much energy and I'm losing weight. And my groceries are cheaper and my food tastier.

[@kvasir8931]

Kellogs claims is like adding vitamins to a cup of mercury and then saying its good for you because it has vitamins in it.

[@Inabin]

Personally I don’t think the honey oat bar suit should go through. Flavor categories are really different than claims about the food. No where on the package does it claim that it’s made exclusively or even mostly out of honey or something like that. If I made “mint tea cookies” out of peppermint extract and matcha or something, it’s common sense that they’re cookies meant to taste like mint tea, and not necessarily cookies made out of an herbal mint tea. In the same sense the honey oat bar (which as far as I know based on what I’ve been told doesn’t make any of those bunk claims about honey being “healthy sugar”) is clearly meant to be an oat bar that tastes like honey.

[@nihtgengalastnamegoeshere7526]

Yeah, and to be fair they DO specify the percentage of honey in them in the ingredients list. It's WAY lower than I'd expect, but they do outright say there's 3% honey in there. So... yeah, reasonable, if somewhat of a piss take.

[@FentonHardyFan]

I agree completely. Honey is often the flavor, like cinnamon, and not at all required to be the most plentiful form of its ingredient type. If I’m buying something like Honeynut Cheerios, or Honey Twist Snacks, the only assumption I’m making is that it will have some honey flavor when I eat it.

[@MorbidEel]

5:30 I just had that same experience the other day with some "blueberry" tea. Prior to actually reading the ingredients we were wondering why it was so acidic. Turns out it contains a lot of hibiscus. A more accurate name would have been blueberry flavored hibiscus tea.

[@jb888888888]

4:55 They took that 40% sugar and sprinkled a little sugar on it, that's why it's only "lightly" sweetened.

[@JonBrase]

My favorite: "Maple flavored" doesn't mean "tastes like maple syrup", it means "tastes like butter and table syrup". They're not lying about what's in it (I'd go for an immitation maple flavor that actually tasted halfways like maple). They're lying about what their target flavor even is. I think they get away with it because a lot of people don't even know what maple syrup actually tastes like (it could be more of a "we don't even know what it tastes like" than an actual lie though...).

[@lesaaaaaaaaaaa]

Hi Ann! I left a comment on your video a few months ago and told you that I had failed my learners license and I wanted to tell you that I got it this Tuesday 😂! Loving this investigative video format, HTCT Fridays for the win!

[@HowToCookThat]

Woohoo Congrats, so exciting. 🚗 Make sure you always drive under the speed limit so you can keep it. So many of my boys friends have lost their license for speeding.🚔

[@lesaaaaaaaaaaa]

@@hannahreynolds7611 thank you!

[@Bell-jw1vf]

The editing is so good every time ty Ann for the excellent videos!

[@HowToCookThat]

Editing takes me so long, thanks for your appreciation it made me smile. 😀

[@mandapanda6233]

I knew most large brand products are misleading to some extent. But I love the way you break each of these claims down. I already love your videos, but I would LOVE more of these product claim debunks. I know I'm not the only one!

[@Eet0saurus]

I was so happy when I saw your cookbook in a second hand store. I immediatly bought it. I have thought about buying it brand new, but the sending costs would be very high since you are on the other side of the world. So I was so surprised to see your book here

[@ettinakitten5047]

2:45 Also note that they're comparing Kelloggs breakfast with *no* breakfast. A fairer study would've been a breakfast of a rival cereal. It's pretty well known that not eating breakfast is a bad thing, it doesn't tell you anything interesting about Kelloggs cereal to say it's better than nothing.

[@SarahAbramova]

Or literally any other breakfast

[@SunsetEnvy]

I saw some watermelon juice once that was 97% apple juice, 2% lemon juice and 1% watermelon juice 💀 The way that shocked me made me never trust anything watermelon again.

[@kaerligheden]

😮😮😮😮😮😮

[@MiotaLee]

My father was disappointed by juice containing more chemicals than actual fruit. I had to tell him that sometimes spending a fraction more money will get you the actual stuff. Just avoid low-cost products and really read the ingredient list. I've been trying to find real butter for years and so far I can't get over 60% butter, the rest is oil.

[@sleep3417]

​@@MiotaLeewhat?! Hard to believe

[@helentee9863]

Watermelon juice flavoured DRINK If it says 'juice' it has to be predominantly that particular juice by law. If it says "drink" ,like 'flavoured' it doesn't . It's the same with the cranberry 'drinks'. Most of them are predominantly water and sugar, even when in a 'juice' carton.

[@bib4eto656]

Like wet cat food lol. You have BEEF written in big letters, and a small "with" on the side. It's 2% beef and the rest is chicken 😅

[@womble901]

Reminds me of the time I showed my mum that there isn't actually any ginger in Kirk's ginger ale. It's just flavour. So the "ginger" can't be helping a sad tummy!

[@tsm688]

ginger is one of those rarest of things, an herbal that actually does what people thought it did 1000 years ago :D

[@CLRaider]

I can watch a 24 hour video of Ann talking about butter, salt and a bottle of water and NOT get bored.

[@blahza12345]

Great video. Regarding the ingredients list, some countries require that any title ingredient ("Honey and oats") would have its precentage included in the ingredients ("Oats (60%), sugar, honey (2%), salt - etc.). That can help buyers understand how much of the appreciated and often expensive ingredients the product actually has.

[@wbfaulk]

In the ingredients list she showed, it does show the percentage of both oats and honey.

[@sarahwatts7152]

Sometimes we hear the bite-size news segments about these lawsuits and think they're crazy, but seen in this format, I can see a lot of value in reining in these claims - particularly for people who don't have the time to investigate every product that they buy.

[@ladymacbethofmtensk896]

Most of these products are purchased for children, mainly because they will accept nothing else.

[@dominikaandglebshchemenok1384]

My new favourite activity is going to stores looking out for tape or the word "flavoured" to see which company got sued! Edit: Kellogs by far has the most tape and the word "flavoured" on their boxed

[@ParanoidDrone]

It's especially fun for chocolate because that's actually protected to some degree but "chocolatey" and similar modifications aren't. Shoutout to the time I found generic store brand "chocolate flavored" chips that, apparently, didn't even have enough chocolate in them to be called chocolate chips.

[@Respectable_Username]

Given how different types of sugar can play differently with different folks' digestive systems (particularly those with IBS), advertising something as being sweetened with one thing but being primarily sweetened with another can cause some problems. Especially if the "promised" sweetener is some specific fruit like strawberry which is foddy-friendly but is actually high fructose corn syrup which is not

[@spyryal]

The worst part of advertising sweetened is the different kinds of sugars. Some sugars don't have to be counted as such and can be labeled as carbohydrates even though they influence bloodsugar like normal sugar. Maltodextrin is a good example. In Germany it doesn't have to be labeled as sugar among the carbohydrates, which is very misleading since it has the same amount of calories. Companies try to advertise low-carb/sugar free products lika that. It's very hard for people with diabetes to pick the right products for them, my colleague has asked me multiple times what foods are safe to eat because I look at the labels as well and know a lot about that kind of stuff.

[@tsm688]

I just looked up the sugar composition of strawberries... Guess what? Natural fruit is absolutely **loaded** with HFCS. Same sugars in nearly the same proportions. HFCS is bad for you because sugar is bad for you. Who knew?

[@JeffVanRooy]

I wish Ann would cover this one day. One of the major misconceptions of the pseudoscience of the natural food world, that somehow sugar from a living organism is magically different from sugar produced in a manufacturing plant. All individual sugars are identical across the planet. The Glucose & Fructose in strawberries is exactly the same as the Glucose & Fructose found in anything else even high fructose corn syrup. Whether produced by a plant, an animal, a bacteria, or a manufacturing plant in Saskatchewan are exactly the same Glucose & Fructose molecules. Glucose is Glucose and Fructose is Fructose no matter the souce. They're all the same no one is more or less “natural” than the others.

[@tsm688]

@@JeffVanRooy Pretty sure she did, in her "healthy sugar" episode, to no real avail

[@Respectable_Username]

@@JeffVanRooy For your _human_ body, they might all be the same. However, to your gut microbiome, they are not. Let's take a very common example: lactose. Some folks can process it, others can't, or at least not as efficiently, which leads it to be fermented by certain gut microbes and produce a lot of gas in the process. I'm similar with fructan as well, which is a sugar found in wheat, garlic, and onion, amongst other foods. If I have too much fructan, my digestive system gets _very_ unhappy. And then there's fructose, manitol, GOS, and sorbitol, the other 4 FODMAPs which certain folks can be sensitive to. This is _not_ because of their energy content. Once the sugar is in your bloodstream, yeah it's much of a muchness. However, while still in your gut, for people with certain gut conditions, it _very much_ matters which type of sugar it is. It matters if your sweetener is maple syrup (glucose) or honey/golden syrup (fructose). It matters if your fruit is strawberry (low amounts of fructose) or apple (high amounts of fructose and sorbitol). When people are talking about sugar, they're not only talking about energy, and it's incredibly insulting to have all health issues reduced to calories and kilojoules only, _especially_ as somebody struggling to _gain_ weight despite a non-cooperative digestive system for the sake of health.

[@Scarlettifity]

30 seconds gang lets go! Always so excited to see H2CT uploads! Also, got to really say thank you to Ann, since I've been watching her, I've been shopping way better. Do I need to know if this cheaper Hazelnut Spread is just like Nutella without paying the $$? Just check the ingredients. Is this item actually promising me its label? Check the ingredients. And if you particularly don't like an ingredient on your grocery, just check the ingredients! It's sad how not a lot of people utilizes it and companies make it so little you cant barely read it. Being transparent is bad you know! LOL

[@HowToCookThat]

🏆 1st to comment (apart from patrons)

[@Scarlettifity]

The YT algorithm was really working hard cause I saw your vid pushed the moment it was published! :D Amazing vid again btw! @@HowToCookThat

[@theformalmooshroom9147]

Oh my god I have the exact same thoughts, nutella or knock of nutella. I tried high end nutella but it was basically just chocolate nut butter. It wasn't bad and definitely had the nutty taste, like it lived up to being full of nuts without any palm oil but it just wasn't the same. I even tried making my own nutella from scratch which was like a more runny gianduja and it was nice but you really need those minute ingredients sometimes. The ones near the end of the list.

[@nataliamascaro3659]

I love this topic! And you're always great at teaching complex ideas in a very intuitive way. For example, I often look at the back labels of products to look at their list of ingredients, but I had never been taught anywhere that the order in which they appear is so important, because it exemplifies the relative amount of each. Thank you so much for that amazing tidbit of information. I'd love to watch you tackle more issues regarding misleading and false advertising.

[@nick.100]

5:48 oh the good old days when advertisers were definitely on acid lol

[@St4rry_r0ses]

Thank you Ann for providing us with yet another informational video ❤

[@billyeveryteen7328]

Personally, my biggest "false" advertising pet peeve is the natural vs. artificial flavor descriptor. "Natural flavor" is an Orwellian term specifically designed to make people think that the flavoring agent being used is the ingredient they claim their product tastes like, which is almost never the case. Let's say, as a hypothetical example, that some weirdo found out that a secretion from a beaver's butt reminded him of strawberries after he, for whatever ungodly reason, decided to taste it. You can take that butt juice and put it in your ice cream or candy or whatever and claim that the strawberry flavoring is "natural flavor" because both legally and biologically, that extract came from a natural source and wasn't synthesized in a lab. The average consumer will probably see "naturally flavored" strawberry ice cream and assume it's using strawberries and not beaver butt juice. That horrifying scenario I just described isn't hypothetical, that's really what "natural" strawberry flavor is; it's made from castoreum, a secretion that comes out of the tail end of beavers.

[@bib4eto656]

Beaver butt juice 😭 Yeah, I've realized over time that things that are "strawberry flavor" don't really taste like strawberries anymore. It's like an 'idealized, completely sweet version", but strawberries are rarely as sweet, and usually have a sour note as well. I caught myself thinking that fresh strawberries don't taste like strawberries, and then realized how I've been brainwashed 😬

[@shadowheartart3898]

.... Thank you SO much for teaching me about "beaver butt juice" 😂❤

[@embee7434]

If I remember correctly, it also has a vanilla scent and is used in perfume... Or maybe I'm confusing it the sperm whale poo... 🤔 Don't quote me. This is a deep reach in a foggy brain...

[@a.w.4708]

Now I want the products to be advertised as "beaver ice cream".

[@nollypolly]

Castoreum is very rarely used in food nowadays. It's still used in some fragrances though. What people need to realize is that they didn't have the technology back then to synthesize flavours/fragrances so they used what they could. If, for example, the castoreum had many times the flavouring strength of a raspberry (not strawberry btw), it made sense to use it instead. Ofc it's refined and isn't akin to sniffing a Canadian rodents' borthole lol

[@blue-dabad33]

my favourite "company got in trouble" work-around is when they have to use really vague terminology. We have a brand that i could have sworn was labelled butter/margarine when i was younger but now it's a "medium-fat spread" lmao

[@alexandrakonigsburg6474]

The standard of identity for margarine might have changed or their formulation did. There are a lot of foods where their content is set by law the difference between jelly, jam, preserves, and fruit spread are a great example. Each as a specific amount of fruit juice, fruit solids, and a specific range of sugar used. If you use an artificial sweetener, for example, it can only ever be fruit spread. Also, I don't know how old you are but margarines had to reformulate to get rid of trans fats as consumers started learning about them and agencies started limiting and then banning them. This meant reformulation that could take them out of the standard of identity for margarine (which has a wild history in the US).

[@liamircheva8045]

I bet their version of flavored is waving a strawberry over the whole batch! Great video as always, thank you for all your hard work, Ann

[@mikestew1990]

dextrose is sugar too, so corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup and dextrose all really just refer to sugar (although not if you're thinking sugar is exclusively sucrose). Pretty incredible that 3 of the top 4 ingredients are sugar.

[@tsm688]

just read the nutrition label and they're all under "carbohydrates". of course then they try to mess you up with serving size...

[@thecharmingdrama]

the strawberry pop tart filling looks like that pink cheescake topping from an older video where u turned store bought cheescake into chef gourmet desserts