That's the power of marketing.

The marketing claims are backed up by the nutrition stats on the product, primarily the RDA values on those nutrition stats - which of course fits in with the pyramid and Plate being pushed by dieticians:

Calories are all important, so that's in the biggest font on the label.

10% or less of your RDA for fats = Good choice!
less than 5% of your RDA for sat fat = Good choice!
less than 5% of your RDA for cholesterol = Good choice!
less than 10% of your RDA for sodium = Good choice!
20% or more of your RDA for total carbs= Good choice!
15% or more of your RDA for fiber = Good choice!

Vitamin D, Iron, Calcium and potassium are apparently the ONLY micro-nutrients that count, because those have RDA percentages too - of course the higher the percentage on those, the closer you are to getting the bare minimum you need of them in your diet.


Protein is apparently completely irrelevant since there is no RDA listed on the label, even though it will (grudgingly) tell you how many grams of protein there is in a serving. Plant based or animal based is considered irrelevant.

Essential fatty acids and essential amino acids are totally ignored, as are the rest of a very long list of vitamins and minerals.



Absolutely the only win we've had on the nutrition labeling is that they now tell you how many total g of sugar there is in the product, and how many of those g of sugar were added sugars. (sugar, corn syrup, honey, glucose, fructose, sorghum, HFCS, - although mysteriously enough, concentrated fruit juices don't seem to count as added sugars)

Although if you're buying pure maple syrup, honey, or other natural sweetener, it's not considered to be added sugars, just naturally occurring sugars... which of course it is since what you're buying is sugar when you buy those things. How many people who are only looking for added sugars will look at that and say "ooh, this bag of sugar has no ADDED sugars - that makes it healthy!"

Then again, I just saw a nutrition stats label on Reddit for a product containing molasses and HFCS, but because of the serving size (1 tsp), they legally rounded the calories, carbs, and sugars down to 0. (based on the rest of the ingredients, I think it must have been some kind of Worcestershire sauce)


And that's just the gov't required nutrition stats label - we now have so many products on the shelves that have carefully chosen nutrition info on the front of the package - and those can promote anything they want you to notice, with or without actual numbers of any kind: low fat content, high fiber content, how low the added sugar content is, how many g of protein it contains, net carbs, low sodium etc. People tend to be in a hurry when they shop, and just want something that's supposedly good for them - the front of package info convinces them that it's a good choice, no matter how bad it really is.