Beyond the Label: Why Marketing Claims Often Mask Hidden Food Risks

Ashwin Bhadri, founder and CEO of Mumbai-based Equinox Labs, warned that terms such as “natural,” “clean,” “plant-based,” “immunity-supporting,” and “high-protein” can create a health halo without proving product quality. For you, the practical lesson is simple: a reassuring front label is not a food-safety certificate.

The label is selling confidence first

A health halo is the gap between what a package suggests and what the product actually delivers. The product may carry a positive claim, while other details—ingredient quality, contaminants, excessive additives, or undeclared ingredients—remain hidden from the quick glance made in a supermarket aisle.

This is not a uniquely Indian issue. FoodNavigator.com points to research from China showing that fruit’s healthy image can make consumers overlook the sugar content of fruit juice. Studies in the UK and France similarly found that claims such as “low-fat,” “zero-sugar,” and “organic” could reduce people’s estimates of a food’s calorie content, particularly when the underlying product was less healthy.

In other words, the marketing claim does not need to be false to distort your judgment. It only needs to dominate your attention.

“Natural” is not a synonym for tested. “Plant-based” describes an ingredient approach, not automatic nutritional superiority. “High-protein” says nothing by itself about sugar, additives, contaminants, or the rest of the formula. And “immunity-supporting” is a particularly efficient way to make a product sound medically important without telling you what has actually been validated.

How it actually works: check the boring parts

When a package is shouting about wellness, move your attention to the information designed to be ignored.

1. Read the full ingredient list.

Do not stop at the front-of-pack claim. Look for the complete formula and note whether the product contains ingredients you did not expect, including additives or potential allergens.

2. Check the nutrition panel.

A “zero-sugar” or “high-protein” message does not describe the entire nutritional profile. Compare the claim with the listed sugar, protein, fat, and calorie information where provided.

3. Separate a product feature from a safety claim.

“Organic,” “natural,” or “clean-label” may shape your expectations, but they do not establish that raw materials were handled well or that the finished product is free from contamination.

4. Treat functional foods and nutraceuticals with extra scrutiny.

FoodNavigator.com reports calls for stronger testing infrastructure in India for these categories, along with better monitoring of contaminants and clearer ingredient traceability. Fast-growing categories are not automatically well-controlled categories.

5. Look for transparency beyond the slogan.

The concerns raised in the report include supply-chain transparency, cold-chain integrity, ingredient traceability, and quality systems. Consumers cannot verify every control from a label, but vague claims combined with limited product information should lower your confidence—not raise it.

India’s recent food-safety reforms are described as an effort to reduce contamination risks, improve traceability, and protect product integrity. The same report highlights digital tools such as blockchain, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence as technologies that can support traceability and regulatory compliance. Useful tools, certainly. But technology does not rescue a weak claim or poor-quality ingredient. A digital trail is only as good as the controls behind it.