How to sell processed foods that are packed with sugar, refined flour or starch, palm oil, or fake fiber...or just a needless plastic bottle of water? Pick a marketing ploy that promises fruit, protein, oats, vegetables, electrolytes, or whole grains. These companies have it all figured out.

Processed food ploy: Fruit!

“1/3 cup equivalent of FRUIT,” says the Carnation Breakfast Essentials Tropical Fruit & Protein Smoothie label. Big deal! The drink has more glucose syrup (added sugar) than fruit purée.

Carnation pales in comparison to a homemade “tropical” smoothie of, say, ½ cup frozen mango, a banana, and a cup of skim milk or unsweet soy milk. You’d get more fruit, fiber (4 vs. 0 grams), and protein (10 vs. 5 grams) and less added sugar (0 vs. 5 grams) for essentially the same calories (230 vs. 220). That’s more like a “breakfast essential.”

Learn more: What’s in the best smoothies and shakes

Processed food ploy: Protein!

“Good source of protein,” boasts the box of Kellogg’s NutriGrain Power-Fulls Strawberry Soft Baked Oat Bites.

Yes, each 160-calorie pouch of Power-Fulls has 6 grams of protein. But you could get that much by snacking on a string cheese (80 calories), a hard-boiled egg (80), or ¼ cup of peanuts or pistachios (160). Or you could get twice as much protein in a serving of low-fat cottage cheese (80 calories) or Greek yogurt (140).

So why bother with dressed-up cookies? The box says “STRAWBERRY” in big print. But inside, Kellogg delivers only “strawberry flavored apples” colored with vegetable juice. Gee, thanks.

Learn more: How to get enough protein from plants

Processed food ploy: Oats!

Nature Valley Strawberry Crispy Creamy Wafer Bars are “made with oat butter,” says the label.

Oooh. That sounds healthy. Turns out, the oat “butter” is whole-grain oat flour plus palm oil, sugar, canola oil, corn starch, and salt.

The processed-food bars’ other ingredients include (more) palm oil, palm kernel oil, (more) sugar, and fructose. That explains why each 200-calorie bar has 8 grams (2 teaspoons) of added sugar and 6 grams of unhealthy saturated fat (30 percent of a day’s max). That’s more sat fat than a Snickers bar (4½ grams).

Oats are healthy. And many oat-based products—like Oatly, Silk, and most other oatmilks—are made with unsaturated, healthy fats like canola or sunflower oil. Leave it to crafty marketers to turn a plus into a ploy.

Learn more: The best oatmilks and other plant-based milks

Processed food ploy: Fiber!

V8 Original High Fiber 100% Vegetable Juice has 6 grams of fiber per cup. That’s triple the 2 grams in V8 Original juice. Does the extra fiber come from the tomatoes, carrots, celery, and greens that are pictured on the bottle? Nope.

V8 just adds soluble corn fiber—a processed fiber that also shows up in many bars, shakes, cereals, and other foods—to its usual V8 juice blend.

The FDA counts soluble corn fiber as “dietary fiber” on Nutrition Facts labels because there’s evidence that it has a health benefit. That benefit? It increases calcium absorption.

So don’t expect a regularity boost like you’d get from prune juice...or from the intact fibers in plant foods like beans, bran, whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables. Processed fiber added to processed food can’t compete with the real thing.

Learn more: How to decode fiber, added sugar, and more on the new Nutrition Facts label

Processed food ploy: Veggies!

Lay’s Simply Veggie Sea Salt Poppables are “made with real veggies,” says the banner that’s surrounded by pictures of spinach, tomatoes, chickpeas, and yellow peas.

Touting “made with” when it means “made with very little” may be the oldest trick in the food marketer’s book. Veggie Poppables have more potato starch and oil than pea flours or tomato or spinach powders. (Who wants powders anyway?) Expect a mere 1 gram of fiber per 29-piece serving. Simply Starch Poppables, anyone?

Learn more: 5 reasons to eat more (real) vegetables

Processed food ploy: Whole grains!

“8g of whole grains per muffin,” say Thomas’ Blueberry Oat Muffin Tops. The catch: 8 grams isn’t much...and an amount that low is usually code for “expect white flour.”

In fact, the muffin tops’ first ingredient is sugar. They have more added sugar (11 grams) than anything else. And the next six ingredients—labels have to list them in order from most to least—are oil, eggs, blueberries, white flour, whole wheat flour, and oats.

“Busy day ahead? Thomas’ Muffin Tops have you covered with real ingredients you can see, like blueberry and oats,” says the package. Good thing we can’t see the sugar and white flour, huh?

Learn more: Some of the best whole-grain breakfast finds

Processed food ploy: Superfruit!

Açaí, dragonfruit, passion fruit, you name it...exotic-sounding fruit has a superfood reputation.

And it doesn’t take more than a hint of a superfruit to sell sugar water. Take the super-popular Starbucks Refreshers drinks.

Starbucks describes its Strawberry Açaí Refreshers Beverage as “sweet strawberry flavors accented by passion fruit and açaí notes, shaken with ice and real strawberry pieces.”

“Flavors” and “notes” are clues that the drink has no fresh or juiced strawberry and no passion fruit or açaí listed among its ingredients. The only berry: a small scoop of freeze-dried strawberry pieces. (The drink also contains “fruit and vegetable juice” from unspecified sources.)

Yet a venti (24 oz.) Strawberry Açaí Refresher has enough added sugar and white grape juice to hit 31 grams of total sugar and as many calories (140) as a 12 oz. can of Coke. Not so refreshing.

Learn more: 6 great-tasting drinks with less sugar (or none)

Processed food ploy: Electrolytes!

“Gatorade’s first ever unflavored water is your new go-to for all day hydration, infused with electrolytes for great taste,” says the company’s website about its new Gatorade Water.

Infused, yes. Just not with the levels of electro­lytes intended to replace sweat loss that you’d find in a regular Gatorade or other sports drink.

For example, a 12 oz. serving of Gatorade Water has only 30 milligrams of sodium (versus 160 mg in a Gatorade sports drink) and is “not a significant source” of potassium, according to the label (so the milligrams aren’t even listed).

Do those of us who aren’t engaged in prolonged, sweat-drenching exercise—or aren’t trying to get through a heat wave—even need sports-drink levels of electrolytes to provide “all day hydration”? 

Nope. That’s what plain water—free from the tap—is for. But if Gatorade can profit from a plastic bottle with the promise of hydration, why not?

Learn more: How much water you need…and other Hydration 101 basics

Processed food ploy: Plant based!

Starburst Goodies Original Gummies—the latest arrival on the lower-sugar candy scene—are a how-to guide for giving gummies a health halo. The tricks:

• Plant based. That’s good to know for vegans who avoid all animal-derived ingredients (like the gelatin that’s added to regular Starburst Gummies). For everyone else, it’s marketing. After all, sugar is plant-based.
• Made with real fruit juice. The fine print is less compelling: “5.5% fruit juice concentrate (apple, cherry, lemon, orange, strawberry).” Concentrated fruit juices count toward “added sugar” when, like Goodies’, they have more sugar than real fruit juice.
• 4g sugar. Starburst Goodies and their ilk (like Smart Sweets and Lily’s gummies) replace most of the sugar in ordinary gummies with low-cal ingredients like allulose and soluble corn fiber. So a 1 oz. serving has only 4 grams (1 teaspoon) of added sugar. (The entire smallish 3.5 oz. bag delivers 14 grams, or 3½ tsp.) And while Goodies may have half the calories of sugary Starburst Gummies, those 50 calories in each ounce (180 calories for the whole bag) are still empty.

Bottom line: Lower-sugar candy isn’t a “goodie,” it’s just less of a baddie. 

Learn more: Is allulose safe to eat? Check our Chemical Cuisine Rating.