9 buzzwords that help sell processed foods: Don't be fooled

If food marketers want their processed foods to stand out—or to distract shoppers from unhealthy fats, added sugar, or empty calories—all they have to do is slap on some healthy-ish buzzwords. We're talking about claims like “immunity support,” “protein,” “lower sugar,” “veggies,” or “almond butter.” Here are 9 examples.

This article comes from Nutrition Action. We don’t accept any paid advertising or corporate or government donations. Any products we recommend have been vetted by our staff and are not advertisements by the manufacturers. They’re just healthy foods we think you’d like to know about! 

Buzzword: Protein

“Supports muscle health,” say Well Market Dark Chocolate Protein-Boosted Almonds. (Well Market is a CVS brand of groceries and snacks.) The almonds—which are coated in a “confectionary application” of mostly sugar, pea protein, and cocoa—are “a delicious way to get the plant-based protein and fiber your body needs,” says the package. Really?

Thanks to that coating, the nuts come with a teaspoon (4 grams) of added sugar in each ¼ cup (30-gram) serving. They have about the same calories (170) and fiber (3 grams) as plain almonds. And they have only 1 more gram of protein (7 vs. 6). 

That’s a boost? 

The bottom line:Plain (or lightly salted) nuts are healthy, but no nuts pile on the protein…including gimmicky “boosted” ones.  

Learn more: How to pick the healthiest nuts & seeds

Buzzword: Immunity support

How does new Quaker Mighty Life Strawberry Blueberry Bliss Multigrain Cereal provide the “Immunity Support” its box promises?

“Helps maintain healthy immune function with an excellent source of vitamins C, D + zinc,” explains the smaller, lighter text.

Sigh. Fortifying cereals, juices, shakes, and other foods with vitamins and minerals that “support immunity” is one of the oldest tricks in the food marketer’s book. As long as companies don’t name a disease or health condition, they can make claims about how a food affects the structure or function of the body with little oversight by the Food and Drug Administration.

But unless you’re deficient in vitamins C or D or zinc, consuming more of them is unlikely to ward off infections. And if you’re worried that you might be getting less of a vitamin than you should, it’s easy to cover your bases with a decent inexpensive multivitamin-and-mineral. Many multis come closer to supplying a day’s worth of C, D, and zinc—plus other key vitamins and minerals—than a serving of Mighty Life does. Just skip the gummy multivitamins, which often fall short on key nutrients like zinc, iodine, magnesium, and vitamins A, C, and K.

Learn more: Vitamin ABCs: How much of each do you need? 

Buzzword: Yogurt

“Made with Greek yogurt,” says the label of General Mills Honey Vanilla YoBark, which calls itself a “dairy bark with granola.” What’s that? 

Don’t confuse YoBark with Internet recipes for homemade frozen “yogurt bark,” which start with yogurt that’s spread on a sheet pan and then topped with berries (or nuts, granola, etc.) before being frozen and cracked into pieces. 

Refrigerated YoBark gets its “yogurt” from dried nonfat Greek yogurt, plus milk powder, and “milk mineral concentrate.” The “bark” texture comes from coconut oil and palm kernel oil, two unhealthy fats that stay solid above freezer temperatures. That explains why each modest 1 oz. serving of the snack delivers 7 grams of saturated fat (a third of a day’s max).

Compared to a single-serve 5.3 oz. tub of nonfat sweetened Chobani Vanilla Greek Yogurt, a serving of YoBark has slightly less added sugar (6 vs. 9 grams). But the bark has more saturated fat (7 vs. 0 grams), more calories (150 vs. 110), and less protein (5 vs. 12 grams). 

YoBark was created in 2021, when an industry-funded dairy promotion program teamed up with General Mills to design a snack that would appeal to “tweens” aged 12 to 13 (who have been eating less yogurt) and their parents. But swapping real yogurt for ultra-processed powdered-yogurt-and-oil pieces? That’s a sour deal. 

Learn more: The best yogurts from cows or plants

Buzzword: Almond butter

Almonds, peanuts, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, hazelnuts…there’s nuttin’ unhealthy about those nuts. But when manufacturers add them—or their butters—to shakes, “breakfast biscuits,” granola bars, chocolate spreads, and other sugary snacks, all bets are off.

Take the Bolthouse Protein Plus with Almond Butter Banana Honey Protein Shake. Each 15.2 oz. bottle has more cane sugar plus honey (29 grams) than almond butter. (The ingredient list says “contains 2% or less” almond butter, which works out to 2 teaspoons or so in the whole bottle.) The rest is mostly water, milk, banana purée, and whey and soy proteins. 

That adds up to a small meal’s worth of calories (400) in a bottle of easy-to-gulp liquid. You could shave off about 120 calories by making a homemade smoothie that skips the 7 teaspoons of added sugar. Or why not just grab a handful of almonds (which are more filling to chew than to sip)?

Memo to Bolthouse: Why not call it a Sugar Plus with Almond Butter Protein Shake?

Learn more: The best nut butters & beyond

Buzzword: Veggies

“1/3 cup of veggies per serving,” says the box of Simple Mills Pop Mmms Cheddar Baked Snack Crackers. “Powered by veggies. Our nutritious veggie flour blend is made from butternut squash which delivers Vitamin A and fiber, and red beans which deliver minerals such as potassium and iron.”

It’s true that if you eat, say, a typical ½ cup serving of roasted butternut squash, you’ll get a good shot of fiber (3 grams) and 60% of a day’s vitamin A. But each 1 oz. serving of Pop Mmms has only 1 gram of fiber and 4% of a day’s vitamin A (along with just 4% of a day’s iron and 2% of a day’s potassium).

That’s largely because the crackers aren’t all butternut squash and beans. They’re full of other ingredients like starchy tapioca and arrowroot, oil, and cheese. Let’s face it: You can only squeeze so many processed vegetables into a 1 oz. serving of processed crackers. Compared to the roughly 5 cups a day of vegetables-plus-fruit in a healthy DASH-style diet, the 1/3 cup in every serving of Pop Mmms isn’t much.

Solution: At mealtimes, fill half your plate with fresh, nutrient-rich vegetables like winter squash, leafy greens, and beans to load up on vitamins and minerals like potassium and vitamin A. And as for snack time, try fresh fruit, baby carrots, or grape tomatoes. Want crackers? Upgrade to one with more fiber from intact whole grains, like Triscuits.

Learn more: How to spot the best in the cracker aisle

Buzzword: Lower sugar

“Go ahead and boost your expectations, for your gummies and for your goals,” say Albanese Lower Sugar Gummi Worms.

Nowadays, just about every candy company has jumped onto the zero-sugar or lower-sugar bandwagon. Many come with caveats, and Albanese is no exception:

1. Not calorie-free. Each 50-gram single-serve bag of Albanese Lower Sugar Gummi Worms has only 2 grams of sugar, but it also gets enough calories from non-sugar carbs plus the few grams of protein in its gelatin to add up to 70 calories. That’s half as much as the same serving of the company’s full-sugar worms—serious savings, but no freebie. (For comparison, a small apple has roughly 70 calories.)
2. Not gut-friendly. Albanese replaces the sugar with a mix of isomalto-oligosaccharide (a poorly digested carb), allulose (a poorly digested sugar), and inulin (a fiber that can cause gas), all of which can lead to GI woes in people who are sensitive to them.

As for the company’s advice to “boost your expectations” for the gummies, don’t aim too high. Some of their colors come from synthetic food dyes (Yellow 5 and Blue 1) and titanium dioxide, all of which we rate as “avoid” in our Chemical Cuisine Food Additive Safety Ratings. (They may pose a risk of cancer or, in some people, allergic or hypersensitivity reactions.)

Learn more: Which low-calorie sweeteners are safe—and which aren’t?

Buzzword: Bran

Bran is the fiber-rich part of whole grains (good!). But it’s also a buzzword that can sell sugary cereals (not so good).

In fact, Kellogg’s new Blueberry Bran Crunch Cereal has a whopping 16 grams (4 teaspoons) of added sugar per cup. Its fiber (5 grams) is enough for the box’s “good source of fiber” claim, but you can do better with regular bran flakes. A cup of Post Bran Flakes, for example, has more fiber (7 grams), less added sugar (6 grams), and fewer calories (110 vs. 210). A cup of Whole Foods 365 Organic Bran Flakes has 7 grams of fiber and just 3 grams of added sugar for only 130 calories.

While you’re at it, steer clear of other sugary cereals that bear “bran” buzzwords like Kellogg’s Frosted Bran (9 grams of added sugar per cup) and Cracklin’ Oat Bran (15 grams per ¾ cup).

Learn more: Healthy cereal: What to look for at the supermarket

Buzzword: Açai

We paid $4 for one single-serving frozen Dole Original Açaí Bowl. What did we get? Just over 200 calories’ worth of an açaí-banana-berry-honey smoothie topped with granola (oats, coconut, more honey, and oil). Its added sugar (11 grams) makes it a better-for-you frozen dessert…but only a you-can-do-better snack.

Unlike Dole’s smallish portions, many smoothie shops pile it on. At Jamba Juice, the Açaí PB Chocolate Hazelnut Bowl has some peanut butter and unsweetened fruit (blueberries, strawberries, and bananas). But then there’s the açai pulp blend sweetened with white grape juice concentrate, sweetened vanilla soymilk, sweetened granola, and sweetened “hazelnut cocoa spread.” And its protein (11 grams) is less than you’d expect to get from its 600-plus calories. Sheesh!

Learn more:10 food swaps to save money on groceries

Buzzword: “Better than”

“Better than popcorn,” proclaims the bag of Like Air Classic Puffcorn. But the “puffcorn” is made from puffed corn meal, oil, and seasonings, not whole-grain corn kernels like regular popcorn. So you get just 1 gram of fiber in every 1 oz. serving (3 cups) instead of roughly 3 grams of fiber in a 1 oz. serving of popcorn.

What about calories? “50 calories per cup,” says the front of the puffcorn bag. That’s not bad, and it beats buttery movie theater or microwave popcorn varieties that add enough oil or “buttery topping” to pile on the calories. But better pre-popped supermarket popcorns like original Skinny Pop or Booomchickapop Sea Salt Popcorn have even fewer calories (40 per cup).

Puffcorn touts its “amazing melt-in-your-mouth texture,” but softer snacks that are easy to eat quickly—with little crunch or chew—may be less filling, some  studies show. That makes it easier to overeat before you’ve filled up.

Our take on puffcorn: “Better than popcorn” is a bunch of puffery.

Learn more:  6 healthy snacks that beat chips or pretzels