You may have seen a full page ad in Parade magazine yesterday promising a 30-day free trial of Sensa, a product that claims you can “lose 30+ pounds without dieting”. You supposedly just sprinkle the stuff on everything you eat “to help reduce cravings, curb your appetite and help you feel full faster.”

When you visit their website from the link provided and click on the free offer, here’s what you see:

It looks like they have upped the offer because they are now going to send you a “free 2-month starter kit*” when you agree to pay $7.95 shipping and handling. There is also a smaller representation to “try Sensa Free for 30 days*”. If you follow the asterisk to near the bottom of the page, all is explained, or is it?

*MOUSE PRINT:

“*Product is Free to try for 30 days! Pay only a small shipping and handling fee.”

Out of curiosity, MrConsumer clicked the “terms and conditions” link at the very bottom of the page. Normally this contains information about website usage, copyright infringment, etc. This time, however, it revealed the true nature of this offer.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Terms of Offer
You have a full 30 days to try your SENSA 2-Month Starter Kit. If you enjoy SENSA, do nothing and you will be billed for the 2-Month Starter Kit one low payment of $89.95 at the end of the free trial on 10/25/2011. That’s a 35% SAVINGS off the retail price! If you decide to keep your 2-Month Starter Kit, you will be automatically enrolled in our SENSA AutoShip Delivery Service. As part of the SENSA AutoShip Delivery Service, you will receive a fresh 2-month supply of SENSA every 60 days at the low price of only $89.95 so you never run out. You will be charged this price every 60 days, billed to your credit card, plus $7.95 shipping and handling.

Someone who just blindly ordered from this “free offer” without paying attention, would likely get an expensive surprise on October 25 when their credit card gets charged $89.95 (not even a full 30 days after they receive the magic powder). Worse, two months later, they will get another shipment of the stuff and another charge because of the automatic shipment plan they may have unknowingly entered into.

It is high time that companies like this became straight forward in their advertising, and told you upfront what the deal really is. NOTE: We did not go through the ordering process to see what disclosures, if any, are given before and after entering one’s credit card number to cover the shipping and handling charges.

Motts, the apple juice people, have been running a feel good commercial for their Motts for Tots product claiming their product has 40% less sugar than regular apple juice.

Did they come up with some revolutionary scientific discovery to remove sugar from apple juice?

*MOUSE PRINT:

Nope. It was a very natural solution. They diluted it with water. A lot of water. And if parents just grab the product without reading the label carefully, they may think they are doing a good thing for their kids when they are probably not.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The nutrition label suggests it might be diluted with about 46% water (in addition to the water necessary to dilute the apple juice concentrate). They did add a shot of vitamin C, however, to make the product more nutritious.

So since you are now buying a product that is almost half water, they’ve undoubtedly cut the price, right? Nope. A half gallon of their diluted product is the same price as 100% pure apple juice.

Motts is not alone is selling a watered-down product and touting the benefit of less sugar and calories. Tropicana has been promoting its “Trop50″ product that way for the past several years.

Last week a commercial for a new product Whonu? cookies began airing nationally. It basically contends that its cookies are a healthy choice for consumers.

On their website, but a little less so in the commercial, the company makes an array of nutrition claims comparing itself not only to oatmeal and milk, but also to the vitamins in blueberries, spinach, carrot juice, tomato juice, cottage cheese, and fruit:

*MOUSE PRINT: Those little asterisks lead to a fine print disclosure on the website, and a similar one in the TV commercial, which is visible for only three seconds:

So, you have to eat three cookies to get the nutrition they claim. However, when looking at the nutrition label for their Oreo-like cookies, one discovers that it contains only three grams of fiber, not four, as one would find in a serving of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats. And all the other vitamins and minerals are mostly in the 10% range (with a few up to 30%) of one’s daily requirement.

The bigger problem in our view is not quibbling over the claims referring to one cookie or three cookies, or the amount of fiber. Rather, it would be an unfortunate result to have people think they could eat these cookies as a substitute for all the healthy foods they compared them to, which obviously, as a whole, provide much more nutrition than these vitamin-spiked snacks.

At a recent consumer meeting where breakfast was served, the only orange juice offered were bottles of an orange/mango combination from Nantucket Nectars.

MrConsumer noticed a number of other attendees and consumer advocates grabbing this drink, which was also labeled “all natural”. Upon closer inspection, the label contained several inconspicuous surprises:

*MOUSE PRINT:

The words “juice cocktail” are in tiny, tiny print on the front lower left of the bottle, and the fact the product only contains 20% juice is on the back. Using the terms “all natural” and “nectar” may also lead many people to conclude this is a 100% juice product.

In fact, the first two ingredients listed on the back of the label are water and sugar, and indeed they are “all natural”. Just how much sugar is in each bottle? An unbelievable 66 grams — which is roughly equivalent to over 16 teaspoons of sugar!

How sweet (and healthy) it isn’t. Many “juices” on the market are not pure juice, but this one seemed particularly surprising.

Under federal law, if a product is not 100% juice, it must be called “juice drink, juice cocktail or juice beverage.” There appears to be no minimum type size requirement for those terms in most cases.

The USDA last week unveiled its replacement for the decades’ old food pyramid, and calls it MyPlate.

It has generally received rave reviews and positive press for more clearly showing the types of things we should be eating daily and their proportions. If you read the details, however, you would see that what looks like roughly equal portions of five food groups at a meal is not what they suggest you eat. And that was the value of the old food pyramid — it better depicted relative quantities of each of the food groups that should be consumed daily.

Digging deeper into the “plate”, you discover what the actual amount of each category of food the government suggests we consume.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Here, for example, the government suggests that most people should eat three cups of dairy per day. Depending on the particular dairy food, that could be a good amount or a crazy amount.

It turns out, however, when they tell us to eat three cups of dairy a day, they really don’t mean three cups. But that is the unfortunate term they chose.

*MOUSE PRINT:

A cup of milk is a cup’s worth, and the same goes for yogurt. But when they tell us to eat a cup of cheese, they really mean to only eat as little as an ounce and half. Except for cottage cheese. A cup of cottage cheese should be two cups.

And the ice cream industry really must have lobbied the government hard, because a cup of ice cream is really a cup and half.

Confusing, huh?