A “low sodium” or “no trans fat” claim on the front of a package does not mean the food is healthier overall, according to a Cornell University analysis of nearly 150,000 food and beverage products launched in the United States over the past decade. Two-thirds of the new products rated “less healthy” overall, even though half carried an on-package health claim. The study appears in Nature Food.
The practical point is simple. A front-of-package claim tells you about one nutrient. Before you buy, turn the box over and check the sugar, sodium and saturated fat on the Nutrition Facts panel. That is a shopping habit, not a medical decision, and it does not require changing anything your doctor has told you about your diet.
The clearest example is the soda aisle. A “reduced sodium” soda was disproportionately likely to make up for it with extra sugar, and extra sugar in drinks carries its own cost: can sugary drinks raise the risk of gout?
Key takeaways
- Of nearly 150,000 new US foods and drinks, two-thirds rated less healthy overall, and half carried a health claim.
- Cutting one nutrient often came with more of another: “no trans fat” meals leaned on saturated fat and sodium, and “reduced sodium” sodas on sugar.
- Drinks showed the biggest gaps, with “low sodium,” “sugar free” and “low saturated fat” claims the most likely to miss the product’s real nutritional quality.
What the study found
The work was led by Miguel Gomez, professor of food marketing at Cornell, and Pei Zhou, a postdoctoral researcher in his lab. They used a decade of new-product data from the market research firm Mintel.
To judge each product, the team used the Nutrient Profiling Model from the UK Food Standards Agency. Unlike a single claim, it scores the whole product at once. It penalizes excess sugar, sodium, saturated fat and calories, and rewards fiber, protein and fruit and vegetable content.
By that measure, two-thirds of the new products were less healthy overall. According to the release, products with health claims were “not only not consistently healthier, they are sometimes less nutritious.”
The researchers traced much of this to trade-offs in how products are made:
- A “reduced sodium” soda was disproportionately likely to add sugar.
- A “no trans-fat” packaged meal often leaned harder on saturated fat and sodium.
- Zhou’s starting point was a lower-fat cream cheese. “They had reduced the fat, but they had more total sugars and more sodium,” she said.
Labels like “natural,” organic, non-GMO and whole grain say nothing formally about sugar, sodium or fat. Prior research cited by the authors shows shoppers read “natural” as “healthy” anyway, a shortcut known as the “halo effect.”
Dr. Kumar’s take
I am working from Cornell’s press release here; the full paper was not available to me.
The headline version of this story, “health claims are a lie,” goes further than the findings. The release says claim-bearing products were not consistently healthier and were sometimes less nutritious. That is different from saying claims mark worse food. What matters is the type of claim. Drinks showed the biggest gaps, and single-nutrient claims were the weak spot.
That fits how these claims work. “Low sodium” is a statement about one number on the panel. A product can meet it and still be loaded with sugar. The claim is true. It just answers a question you may not have asked.
A scoring system that weighs the whole product, like the one the researchers used, gets closer to the question shoppers care about. Gomez says his team’s paper points policymakers toward that kind of system, like the warning labels used in Chile and Mexico. The FDA has also proposed a front-of-package label meant to sum up a product’s nutrition at a glance.
What it means for you
- Treat the front claim as a hint. Gomez put it this way: “A claim on the front of a box is a hint, not a verdict.”
- Read three lines on the back. Added sugars, sodium and saturated fat, together.
- Be most careful with drinks. That is where claims like “sugar free” and “low sodium” drifted furthest from overall quality. If you are buying drinks for your kids, sugar is worth checking: are sugary drinks tied to anxiety in teens?
- Ignore “natural” as a health signal. It says nothing formal about sugar, sodium or fat.
This finding supports reading labels more carefully. It does not tell you to cut out any food group or change a diet your doctor set for a condition like kidney disease, heart failure or diabetes. Those limits stay with your doctor.