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Purina One: Where’s the Fish?

purina salmon Many animal owners love to pamper their pets. Whether it is with special grooming products, cutesy outfits, or special food, nothing is too good for their little furry friends.

Purina One is inviting cat owners to “see the difference” in their “exciting new kibble mixture.” It is “great nutrition”, they say, and is “made with real ingredients.”  For their salmon and tuna flavor cat food, they use real salmon and real tuna, as pictured above [and in their Valassis ad, 1/28/07].

Exactly how much salmon and tuna is in this cat food?

*MOUSE PRINT: According to the product label, which lists ingredients in the order of predominance, there is more fat in Purina One than fish. In fact, salmon and tuna are the seventh and eighth ingredients down the list, just before dried yeast. The product is actually mostly poultry-by product meal and other ground grains, rather than what the picture depicts — lots of fish and a little bit of grain.  

Poultry by-product meal, whole grain corn, brewers rice, soybean meal, corn gluten meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), salmon, tuna, brewers dried yeast, non-fat yogurt, calcium carbonate, phosphoric acid, animal digest, caramel color, salt, potassium chloride, tetra sodium pyrophosphate, choline chloride, calcium phosphate, L-Lysine monohydrochloride, taurine, zinc sulfate, Vitamin E supplement, ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate, niacin, Vitamin A supplement, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, copper sulfate, riboflavin supplement, Vitamin B-12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, Vitamin D-3 supplement, calcium iodate, biotin, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), sodium selenite.

To try to better understand exactly how much salmon and tuna are in Purina One, MrConsumer asked the company. They responded that “the exact amount of ingredients used in our formulas is considered proprietary.”

Their website indicates that one cup of Purina One is 106 grams, and that is the largest daily portion recommended for the largest cat. Assuming all the other ingredients comprise at least 80% of the product (and that is probably a conservative assumption), then only about 20 grams — about a tablespoon and a half — of dried fish is actually in it.

Funny how some products can be fishy and not fishy at the same time.

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Hotwire: Hidden Fees in their “Complete” Prices

hotwirecar1.jpg

When it comes to shopping for travel, the price that catches your eye is not always the price you pay. And rarely is it lower than advertised.

Hotwire.com is a site that offers discounted airfares, hotel, and car reservations by not disclosing what airline, hotel or car rental agency you are contracting for until after you pay. (It is like Priceline without the price guessing games.)

On it website, Hotwire advertised car rental rates as low as “$13.95 with no hidden fees.”  Just beneath that it listed Boston with rates as low as $5.95. What a deal!  Clicking on that link brings up the typical pricing form where you enter dates of travel.

For a one day rental from March 28 to March 29, the system returned the following price:

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Yes, it is $3 higher than the lowest price, but it still a great deal. The asterisk after “$8.95 per day” goes to this:

*MOUSE PRINT: 

* Rates are shown in US dollars. Total cost for Hotwire Discount rates includes applicable tax recovery charges and fees.

Indeed, this is more good news — $8.95 is price you really pay. Or is it?

*MOUSE PRINT: On the next screen, the truth is revealed:

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Adding the taxes and fees makes the total cost of the car triple the advertised price!

Unfortunately, the problem of advertising incomplete prices is not limited to Hotwire. Most car rental companies, airlines, cell providers, and cable companies attract you with seemingly low priced packages only to relegate to the fine print or your first bill what the true total and complete price really is.

All these services have extraordinarily high fees, charges, and taxes added to the promoted price which can bring the total to 30%, 40% or more than advertised. Here’s a novel idea: companies should make the price you see be the price you pay! 

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Smart for Life Diet: Just Eat Cookies?

If you live in one of the cities where Smart for Life has offices, no doubt you have seen their TV commercials touting their cookie diet. “I lost 35 pounds in three months by eating cookies,” says one now slender client.

They say their cookies are made from extracts of fruits, vegetables, wheat and dairy, and their commercials show all those produce and grain ingredients being loaded into their cookies. But, they only provide ingredients listings for three of their six cookies on their site. Here is their recipe for blueberry cookies.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Triple Filtered Water, Vegetable Glycerin, Doctors Protein BlendTM (Milk Protein, Egg Protein, Organic Whey Protein), Hydrolyzed Collagen (Gelatin), Organic Whole Oats, Organic Crisp Rice (Organic Brown Rice Flour, Organic Molasses, Calcium Carbonate), Organic Invert Sugar, Organic Dried Blueberries, Organic Whole-Grain Wheat Flour, Vegetable Gum, Organic Soybean Oil and/or Enriched Organic Golden Flax Meal (Organic Flax, Fish Oil), Vegetable Gum, Organic Fractioned Palm Oil, Raw Organic Oat and/or Wheat Bran, Organic Oat Flour, Organic Pure Tahitian Vanilla Extract, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, Sea Salt, Natural Flavoring, Organic Nutmeg. Contains at least 60% Organic Ingredients.

Yum. Notice that water is the first ingredient, meaning there is more of it by weight than another other ingredient. And the only “vegetable” listed for the three cookies online is “vegetable glycerin” and “vegetable gum”. No wonder some people around the country are selling 12 days’ worth of leftover cookies on Craigslist. Worse, the cookies are not particularly nutritionally dense considering they will account for most of the food you will be eating daily.

The diet requires you to eat six cookies a day instead of breakfast, lunch and snacks. For dinner, you are only allowed six ounces of protein and two half-cup servings of vegetables. According to one of the company’s doctors who is interviewed, clients generally eat only about 800 calories a day. So, at 105 calories per cookie, that would only leave 170 calories for dinner. Eat hearty!

The commercial also claims “it will save you a fortune over other plans.”

*MOUSE PRINT: A two week supply of cookies is $129!  That is over $1.50 per cookie. (NutriSystem says their real food is about $10 a day, or about $140 for two weeks.)

In addition to the cost of the cookies, there is an initial evaluation and program fee,  including medical tests, and vitamins. That adds hundreds more to the cost.

The company’s website does, however, have good news for would-be clients:  “No exercise needed to lose weight” and “Eating habits improve automatically and permanently”.

Sure.

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