Carrot chocolate: How misleading labels deceive health-conscious buyers

Carrot chocolate — sounds appealing, right? Before we rush to praise this product, let's look closer. Did food producers finally have mercy on consumers — especially children who eye sweets in the store — and create a vegetable-chocolate concept that not only tastes good but also offers some nutritional value? Unfortunately, two disappointing facts emerge. The first is the answer to the above question. The second is that you probably anticipated this disappointing answer anyway.

The existence of carrot chocolate dietitian Anna Makowska learned from one of her readers. When she read the ingredients of the snack, she became quite angry. "I'm not amused by making idiots out of consumers. And making thoughtless illiterates out of children p***** me off quite a bit," she wrote on her profile "Doctor Ania." Why did the dietitian get so upset?

The composition of the carrot chocolate sent to Doctor Anna Makowska is not very favorable regarding health properties. But let's be honest — no one expects sweets to be as nutritious as vegetables. However, there is a specific boundary of misleading food product names, and crossing this boundary greatly upsets the dietitian.

Carrot chocolate, presented on the "Doctor Ania" profile, contains...0.02 ounces of dried carrot per 3.5 ounces of chocolate. Yes, you read that correctly. Just that little vegetable was enough to call the chocolate "carrot" and lure customers into buying it with a positive association. Doctor Ania commented on this tactic in harsh words:

Is it a fun play on words? 0.02 ounces is about a pinch of dried carrot for the WHOLE BAR. [...] Come on, is this some boundary of absurdity? Who invents such labels? Who approves them? Who prints them? Why can't this product be called something else?

Do you agree with Doctor Anna Makowska's opinion? Would you also feel cheated buying such "carrot" chocolate?