The sneaky economics of healthwashing

NPR Planet Money LISTEN & FOLLOW NPR App Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon Music iHeart Radio YouTube Music RSS link Planet Money The sneaky economics of healthwashing August 4, 20266:30 AM ET Greg Rosalsky d3sign/Getty Images This article first appeared in the Planet Money newsletter. You can sign up here. If you go to a store like Whole Foods, you'll find a lot more than … whole foods. You'll also find bougie packaged snacks, cereals, and all sorts of other processed foods and drinks. Often they'll have buzzwords on their packaging. "Organic." "Non-GMO." "High protein." "No Cholesterol." "100% Avocado Oil." These products tend to cost more, and they come with a sort of promise: they're better for you than the cheaper stuff. But these food products may not actually be healthier than the cheaper stuff. Sometimes it's because they're still packed with sugar, salt, saturated fat, preservatives, and other additives. Other times their healthy-sounding ingredients aren't actually healthier (labels like "organic" and "non-GMO" don't necessarily make a product more nutritious). In other, more extreme cases, these products may not even include the healthier ingredients they're charging you a premium for. Sponsor Message Our NPR colleague Maria Godoy recently reported on a new study by researchers at UC Davis that suggests a bunch of avocado-oil products have false claims on their packaging. The researchers did a chemical analysis of 54 products that listed avocado oil as their only oil ingredient. We're talking swanky products like avocado-oil potato chips, salad dressing, and mayonnaise. The researchers found that, despite being labeled as containing only that pure, uncut avocado oil — a whopping 89% of the products they tested appeared to be adulterated with other oils. One avocado-oil product appeared to have no avocado oil at all, according to one of the researchers. For Millennials like me who sustain ourselves almost exclusively on avocado products, it's enough to make yo...