Choice: Health Washing - Dodgy Claims Made By Breakfast Drinks

If you are rushing out the door to work without breakfast and grab a liquid breakfast instead at the local convenience store thinking that you are at least starting the day with a healthy drink. Think again:

The number of on-the-go breakfast drinks might be growing as they tap into consumers' increasing demands for meals on the go, but is convenience trumping nutrition?

Alarmingly they are also a growing category in the supermarket aisles.

A Choice investigation found that 10 of the 23 products investigated have more than 23g of sugar per serve - roughly the same as a chocolate bar.

Choice also found several popular liquid breakfast products including Sanitarium's Up & Go and Kellogg's breakfast drinks make dodgy nutritional claims.

According to Choice's website "Fibre Spruiking claims such as “High in fibre”, “fibre for digestive health”, the “goodness of three grains” – you’d be forgiven for thinking the products are actually high in fibre.

But the industry’s own voluntary Nutrient Claims Code of Practice allows products with as little as 1.5g of fibre per serve to claim they are a “source of fibre”.

Liquid breakfasts have on average 1.5% fibre, which is well below the 10 per cent benchmark for high fibre".