In line with centralizing all serious stuff between my blogs, I’ll be continuing my series of posts on fitness on this blog. The other posts are still archived in LiveJournal because copy-pasting them here would be cheating.
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The most annoying TV commercial for me nowadays is the one for Lucky Me Sotanghon Lite. See if you can figure out why I don’t like this commercial:
At 125 calories per serving, it’s actually a better alternative to instant noodles. My problem here is that it puts too much emphasis on the low-fat (0.5g) and the zero-cholesterol. Remember, fat alone does not make you fat — calories do. Commercials like these spread the misconception that fat is important, and it usually leads to a scenario featured recently in GraphJam:
why people buy food with "50% less fat"
Cholesterol content is a non-issue. Instant noodle’s (our control group) cholesterol level of 5mg is hardly comparable to an egg yolk’s 200+ mg of cholesterol, so why should we even bother with 0mg cholesterol versions of instant noodles?
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Misleading ads are not new; I’d be tempted to take on the notorious Promil ads if only they were related to fitness. Milo is also a good target, but I’ll let it slide because of the amount of support (and sponsorships) that “sports” drink provides to our athletes. Jack and Jill Nova, on the other hand, is just ripe enough for some bashing.
I personally like eating Nova, but just glancing at the Nutritional Information at the back of the pack makes you think twice about whether this snack really lives up to its slogan “Guilt-free Snacking” and “Have as much as you want!“.
At 140 calories per serving, it’s calorie content is just average among similar snacks. Piattos even has less calories per serving than Nova.
You might say “but I’m eating Nova for the fiber from the multigrains”. Sorry, but Nova only has 2g of dietary fiber per serving. Compare that to the 1g of dietary fiber from Piattos and you’ll see it’s not that special. If you really want to get dietary fiber from a snack food, get it from my personal favorite: Oishi Pea Pod. Sure, it may taste like crap to some people, but 5-freaking-grams of fiber per serving (20% RDA) might make you consider having this for meriendaonce in a while.
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So remember kids, always take ad related to “diet” food with a grain of salt, and don’t forget to double check with the Nutritional Information label before buying something.
