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Home› Food Receipts› Vitaminwater vs Cheerios

Vitaminwater VS Cheerios

Vitaminwater Cheerios
Verdict DROP IT BUY IT
The Reality When consumers sued Coca-Cola in 2009 over these claims, the company's own legal defense -- raised in its motion to dismiss -- was that 'no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.' US District Court Judge John Gleeson rejected that defense in July 2010, ruling that naming the product 'vitaminwater' and its flavors 'energy,' 'revive,' and 'defense' has 'the potential to reinforce a consumer's mistaken belief that the product is composed of only vitamins and water,' and largely denied Coca-Cola's motion to dismiss the case. On May 5, 2009, the FDA sent General Mills a formal warning letter finding these specific, quantified claims made Cheerios an unapproved new drug under federal law, since companies are legally barred from quantifying a specific percentage health benefit the way General Mills had. Critically, the underlying science itself wasn't in dispute: Cheerios' general soluble-fiber cholesterol-lowering claim had already been an FDA-authorized qualified health claim for 12 years at that point, and General Mills maintained the clinical study behind the 4% figure was genuinely strong. The issue the FDA flagged was specifically the precise quantification ('4% in 6 weeks'), not the broader, already-approved claim that whole-grain oat soluble fiber can help reduce cholesterol as part of a diet low in saturated fat.
SHORT ANSWER

Vitaminwater: Coca-Cola's own legal defense against a 2009 lawsuit over vitaminwater's health claims argued that no reasonable consumer should have believed the product was healthy in the first place -- and a federal judge ruled the product's own naming and flavor names could still mislead people into thinking it was.

Cheerios: Cheerios' general claim that whole-grain oat soluble fiber can help lower cholesterol is a legitimate, FDA-authorized health claim with real science behind it -- but General Mills' specific 2009 quantified claim ('4% in 6 weeks') crossed into illegal, unapproved drug-claim territory and drew a formal FDA warning letter.