fbpx

The Torch-Bearers of Healthy Food

5 Ways truly healthy brands are using Nutrition as an honest marketing tool

The good food guys

If you’ve been a regular reader of FITSHIT, you’d know that I have, in my own small way, declared war against Health Marketing : the fraudulent act of labelling unhealthy, sugary, preservative laden junk as ‘FAT-FREE’, ‘100% Real’ and ‘No Nasties’.

So two weeks ago, I started by attacking the fundamentals of this trickery. I shared with you my 4-step process to decoding Nutrition Labels.

With those basics sorted, last week I made the attack a lot more direct — naming and shaming Top Brands that deliberately obfuscate nutritional info to make their products seem healthy.

Today, with this post, I make my final move.

Now that you know how they trick you, and how some top tricksters operate, I want to tell you that all is not lost. That there are some good guys out there, showing us how Health-Marketing should be done. How good food, sold truthfully, can be a powerful marketing tool. How nutritional info can be more than just a black and white patch that you hide in some corner. How it can be a powerful claim that you should proudly display up front.

But before I get to it, some disclaimers are in order:

  1. This series is not an exhaustive list of products that I consider Healthy or otherwise. I’m just using these brands as examples. To equip you with the tools you need to examine other brands that claim they’re ‘Healthy’.
  2. Most examples you’ll see here are brands not found widely in India (where many of my readers are located). I’m sorry — but I couldn’t find any great examples from our country. Maybe they exist, but I couldn’t, in the limited time I had, find them.
  3. But these are still relevant, because more than the brand-names, what matters is how these brands use nutritional info as a force for good. Just as you must know the tricksters technique, you must know the good samaritans method.

Ok, with that settled, let’s get to it.

There are many truly ‘Healthy’ brands out there who’re fighting the good fight. And here are the Top 5 Ways in which they simplify nutritional info, showcase it, and use it as a great marketing weapon:

1. ‘Per Piece’ Nutrition

Because I eat biscuits by the piece. Not 100gm at a time.

How tough is this to do?

I eat one cookie, one bread piece, one shortbread at a time. Why can’t brands just calculate nutrition ‘per piece’ and share it with me. Why make me walk around with a calculator in hand!

Check out the rye-bread brand above. Clean ingredients called out up front. Per Slice nutritional info calculated at back. And almost NIL sugar.

Go on, use this as your tea time snack. Guilt free.

2. Correct ‘Serving Size’

Loving all Jamie Oliver Products and how they display Nutrition

What’s the point of telling me calories ‘per 100ml’ on a 300ml can of Coke? When was the last time you drank a third of a can and kept the rest for later?

While researching for this post, I fell in love with Jamie Oliver’s food brand. Clear, accurate serving sizes are called out on every pack (I’d never realised that we use up 1/3rd of a Jar while making one batch of pasta!).

He uses good quality, fresh ingredients. He tells you how much to use right up front. And, above all…next point.

3. Nutrition Table Up FRONT

No Need to turn it around. Nutrition table Up Front!

Isn’t this the simplest, boldest statement to make about the confidence you have in your product?

Just put the entire damn nutrition table up front. Like this brand above does. No Need to turn to back of pack and get frustrated trying to read the microscopic fine print. Infact, take it a step further. Color code it, beautify it.

Like Jamie Oliver does! 💖 💖💖

More Like This

Fraudulent ‘Health’ Marketing

The truth behind ‘FAT-FREE’ and ‘100% Real’ and ‘No-Sugar-Added’ Last week, I wrote a detailed post about seeing…

Read More
How To Read Nutrition Labels

My 4-step process to answering — ‘Is this healthy?’ If you’ve started on the path to fitness, chances are you…

Read More
6 Weeks of Intermittent Fasting: Here’s What It’s Done To Me

At the start of this year, I started Intermittent Fasting. The aim was to find 3 answers: Does…

Read More

2 thoughts on “The Torch-Bearers of Healthy Food

  1. I wish I had found your blogs 5 years ago. It would have saved me hundreds of miles running, sweating, anticipating that the love handles will shape up. I had been eating wrong under the pretext of eating healthy. Keep up the good work.

    More power to you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Blog Categories

Get Free Weight-Loss E-Book

Get Free Weight-Loss E-Book