PepsiCo can be sued for marketing its Gatorade protein bars as good for you though they have more sugar than protein and more sugar than typical candy bars, a federal US judge ruled.<\/p>\n
In a decision on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts in San Jose, California said three self-described fitness enthusiasts leading a proposed class action plausibly alleged that PepsiCo’s marketing and labelling was deceptive.<\/p>\n
Neither PepsiCo nor its lawyers immediately responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
PepsiCo was accused last September of violating federal and state consumer protection laws by creating a “health halo”<\/em> around Gatorade bars, including assurances they “help muscles rebuild,” are “used by the pros” and are “backed by science.”<\/p>\n According to the lawsuit, the bars are actually “fortified junk food” with 29 grams of sugar, including 28 grams of added sugar — more than the American Heart Association’s recommended 25 gram daily limit for women — and just 20 grams of protein.<\/p>\n The plaintiffs said excess consumption of added sugar is linked to high rates of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n They said they wouldn’t have bought Gatorade bars or would have paid less had they understood their nutritional character, and are seeking unspecified damages.<\/p>\n PepsiCo called the deception claims “implausible” because it did not market the bars as healthy or low in sugar, especially for flavours such as Chocolate Chip and Cookies and Cream.<\/p>\n Pitts, however, said reasonable consumers might be unable to readily interpret the sugar content on labels, and be misled by PepsiCo’s “self-proclaimed science-backed claims.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PepsiCo can be sued for marketing its Gatorade protein bars as good for you though they have more sugar than protein and more sugar than typical candy bars, a federal US judge ruled. In a decision on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts in San Jose, California said three self-described fitness enthusiasts leading a proposed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":43692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43693,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43691\/revisions\/43693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}