Updated every Monday!   Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

Product Dilution: Cheerios Decreases Vitamin Content

In a move rarely ever done, General Mills actually reduced the quantity and number of vitamins (and therefore the nutritional value) of one of its cereals — MultiGrain Cheerios.

*MOUSE PRINT:

MultiGrain Cheerios

The nutrition label on the left shows that one serving provides 100% of the daily requirement of nine vitamins and minerals. The one on the right shows that these were reduced to only 25% of the daily requirement in most cases, and two were actually eliminated completely from the product.

We asked the company why they reduced the vitamin content.

“The change in vitamin levels brought MultiGrain Cheerios in line with the Cheerios family of cereals. MultiGrain Cheerios now delivers an excellent source of 8 vitamins and minerals for our all-family consumer base.” — General Mills spokesman.

As consumers, we are used to having to check the price of a product to see if it has changed. Readers of Mouse Print* have learned that you also have to check the net weight of a product to see if it has been downsized. And, who would have believed it, but now we have to check the nutrition label to see if we are getting fewer vitamins.

We are nicknaming this phenomenon of a product being reforumulated and watered down as “product dilution.” Another example of product dilution was when many flavors of Breyers ice cream had the amount of milkfat reduced to below 10% requiring it to be renamed “frozen dairy dessert.”

If you spot a product that has been diluted, please email details to edgar (at symbol) mouseprint.org .

Thanks to Nancy W. for discovering the Cheerios product dilution, which the company says actually occurred in 2011.

Share this story:

 

ADV
Updated every Monday!   Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

Smart Balance Butter Blend Helps Block Cholesterol?

Many consumers switched from butter to margarine decades ago to help reduce their intake of cholesterol. Now Smart Balance has come out with a combination product that blends butter with canola oil, impliedly claiming that it is a healthier version of butter. Some would say that is kind of like sprinkling vitamins on Twinkies and calling it a health food. But wait, there’s more.

The product label says it “helps block cholesterol.”

Smart Balance

Huh? Eat butter to block cholesterol?

The label says it contains 100mg of plant sterols, which according to the company’s website helps block absorption of the cholesterol that is contained in the butter.

*MOUSE PRINT:

According to Shop Smart magazine, Consumer Reports’ sister publication, you would have to eat 13 tablespoons of this butter everyday to help lower your risk of heart disease. That is 1300 calories and almost the whole container.

The makers of Smart Balance failed to answer questions about their product when asked.

To be fair, the company is claiming in essence to only reduce some of the cholesterol in each serving of their butter blend and not to lower your cholesterol. In any event, eating products with no cholesterol to start with is still a healthier idea.

Share this story:

 

ADV
Updated every Monday!   Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

Questioning Carbonite’s “Unlimited” Backup Service Claims

Over the years, cell, long distance, and cable companies have advertised “unlimited” services, but a close reading of the fine print almost always reveals that the services are not truly unlimited.

Last year, in the UK, ASA, the private organization that enforces a voluntary advertising code, came down hard on Carbonite — the online file backup service that sends a copy of the files from your home computer up to the “cloud” for safekeeping.

In both the US and UK, Carbonite advertised “unlimited” backup service for an annual service fee:

Buried in their UK website was an unexpected catch:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Bandwidth Throttling: Yes (35GB, 200GB)

Huh? Even buried deeper in the site in a blog post was an explanation:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Carbonite Home allocates more bandwidth to users doing a typical initial backup of less than 35GB, and less to users after their backup exceeds 200GB. Once your initial backup is complete, updates to your backup usually take only a few minutes each day.

This bandwidth policy has three tiers. Users performing a smaller backup will usually see faster upload speeds than users with larger backups. However, depending on your Internet connection, your computer’s configuration, other Internet-enabled software you may be running, and how often you use your computer, actual backup speeds may vary. The current maximum upload speeds are as follows:

— The first 35GB of data can achieve upload speeds of up to 2 mbps (megabits per second).
— Between 35GB and 200GB of data, upload speeds can reach up to 512 kbps (kilobits per second).
— At 200GB or more of data, upload speeds are limited to around 100 kbps (kilobits per second).

In plain English, just like some cell companies that slow down your connection when you use more than a certain allotment of data, so does Carbonite. They throttle your upload connection down to a crawl when you are uploading a lot of files. The result is that while you think you have backed up all your files, it may take weeks to actually do so, if you have a large hard drive.

The advertising watchdog in the UK felt this limitation was not made clear to consumers who signed up for unlimited service and therefore ruled against them ordering that they more clearly disclose the upload limitation.

Share this story:

 

ADV