Misleading Nutrient Lables Essay, Research Paper

In the new twenty-first century, health is the major concern among the human species. Thus, maintaining a healthy diet is very essential for all human beings. Numerous food companies attempt to advertise their products by promoting the health issues so people will buy it since they believe the food they are buying are considered somewhat healthy. However, because of the fact that more and more people are concerning whether or not the food they are eating are good for their health, manufacturers begin to take advantages of unrealistic serving size and promoting only the good side of the food to attract people to buy their so-called healthy products. Hence, many of the advertising food have misleading labels, which are health-concerned labels that are claimed for the food, in which the manufacturers would like the buying public to believe the food is healthier than what it actually is.

There are many advertised food that contain misleading labels out there in the market. From Albertson s Light Brownie Sensation Ice Cream is one of them. Basically, this is an ice-cream product and it fits in the milk, yogurt, and cheese group (2-3 servings per day) in the food pyramid. The nutritional values of this product are the relative good supplies of protein, calcium, and vitamin A. However, this product should supply a little more protein and calcium (since it is in the milk, yogurt, and cheese group), also add in some vitamin C would be great since it is not originally included in the product. The misleading advertisement in this product is that the manufacturer used the word light but in fact it is not light. In nutritional terms, that the light product should be 50% less fat and 33% less calories than the original/regular product. However, for this particular light ice cream, although it is 50% less fat than the regular ice cream (4 g of fat in light and 8 g of fat in regular) but it is not 33% less calories than the regular ice cream; in fact it is only 20% fewer calories than the regular ice cream. Therefore, it is not light ice cream since it does not satisfied the definition of light. Furthermore, this product is supposed to promote the health issue of low in fat. Unfortunately, the product contains quite a huge amount of saturated fat (1.5 g) in comparison to the total amount of fat (2.5 g) in the product. The amount of saturated fat in the total amount of fat in the product is 1.5 g/2.5 g * 100% = 60%, which is over 30%, which is quite high and unhealthy. Thus, there are many flaws to the label of this light ice cream product.

In conclusion, many food labels are misleading the public to believe than the products they are buying are healthier than what it actually is. Therefore, everyone should be aware of what he/she is buying, considering whether or not the food is really that healthy as what the outside label has claimed. In fact, because of a misleading label, what one is buying could be something that is totally the opposite of what one has expected in terms of the health issue. Be very careful!!!