Is this healthfoods? Its image may be healthy, but the food in supermarkets' healthfood aisles is often anything but.(REPORT: Healthfood aisle)(Product/service evaluation)

Publication: Choice (Chippendale, Australia)

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2006 Australian Consumers' Association

If someone asked you to picture a healthfood product, you might think of dried fruit and nuts, rice cakes, tofu or vegetable juice. You might also think of soy drinks, organic muesli or gluten-free pasta. Certainly it'll be a food that's generally deemed to be good for you, or has some health-giving qualities. So if you're shopping in the healthfood aisle of a supermarket, these are the types of assumptions you might make about the foods you'll find there.

To see if these assumptions held true, we took a closer look at a selection of foods from the healthfood aisle of major supermarkets. Sadly we found as much hype as health.

THE FOUR FURPHIES OF HEALTHFOOD

If it's in the healthfood aisle, it must be healthy

Don't kid yourself...

* The 50 g BE NATURAL Yoghurt Coated Almond & Apricot bar we got from the healthfood aisle contains more saturated fat, and more fat overall, than a McDONALD'S Cheeseburger.

* The 25% 'natural' fruit in GOLDEN DAYS Apricot Meteorites sounds good. But the almost 25% fat (mostly saturated)? Not so good.

* Nutritionally, GO NATURAL Apricot Pieces in Yoghurt from the healthfood aisle and CADBURY Cherry Ripe Chocettes are very similar. They even contain a similar amount of fruit. But we've yet to see Cherry Ripe classified as a healthfood.

* What well, naturally sugar-free Dark Chocolate lacks in sugar, it makes up for in fat. A 45 g bar contains...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.