Last reviewed: July 2026

How to spot a health halo product

A health halo is a front-of-pack claim that does not survive the back-of-pack panel, and it almost always follows one of four patterns. A vegetable in the product name that is not really a vegetable. A nutrient removed and quietly replaced. A wholesome category word covering a confectionery recipe. A single good nutrient printed large enough to hide everything around it. Once you can name the four, you can check any product in about ten seconds, and you never need to trust the front of a pack again.

Pattern 1: the vegetable that is not a vegetable

Vegetable-named snacks are usually potato or maize starch with a small amount of vegetable powder for colour. The label settles it. Our veggie straws read 464 kcal, 3.6 g of protein, 3.6 g of fibre and 929 mg of sodium per 100 g. A bag of ordinary salted crisps reads 480 kcal, 6 g of fibre and 980 mg of sodium. The two are the same snack. There is nothing wrong with eating either; the problem is only that one of them is priced and portioned as though it were a vegetable.

All figures come from the linked product labels. Each pair is one health-halo product against the ordinary product it is implicitly compared to.

Pattern 2: the nutrient removed and quietly replaced

This is the most reliable pattern in the supermarket, and peanut butter shows it cleanly. The reduced-fat version does what it says: fat falls from 48.5 g to 33.3 g per 100 g. What it does not say is that carbohydrate rises from 24.2 g to 41.7 g, sugars rise from 9.1 g to 11.1 g, and sodium rises from 424 mg to 528 mg. The energy saving after all that is 48 kcal per 100 g, which is under 9%, for a product with less peanut in it. Removing fat removes texture and flavour, so something has to go back in, and it is almost always starch, sugar and salt. The peanut butter comparison covers the same aisle from the other direction.

Pattern 3: the wholesome word over a dessert recipe

Granola is oats, which is why it inherits the health reputation of porridge, and then it is bound with oil and sugar and baked, which is why it does not deserve it. Honey and almond granola reads 460 kcal and 13.9 g of sugar per 100 g. The plain oats underneath it read 348 kcal and 0.2 g. That is 112 extra calories and roughly seventy times the sugar for the same grain. Granola is a perfectly reasonable thing to eat in the 40 g portion printed on the box; the halo problem is that it is poured like cereal in 80 g helpings because it is filed under breakfast rather than under dessert. The serving size guide explains why the printed portion is usually smaller than the poured one.

Pattern 4: one good nutrient, printed large

Adding protein to a biscuit makes a higher-protein biscuit. The protein cookies in our data carry 20.8 g of protein per 100 g, which is genuinely three times the 7 g in an ordinary chocolate chip cookie. They also carry 507 kcal against 502, and 24.4 g of sugar against 32 g. The protein claim is true and the product is still a cookie. That is the honest reading, and it is a fine thing to buy if you want a cookie and would like some protein with it. It is a bad thing to buy if the word protein has quietly moved it into the same mental category as chicken and lentils.

Which claims are actually regulated

This is the part that makes the pattern predictable. Some claims have legal definitions. In the EU, Regulation 1924/2006 sets the conditions for terms such as low fat, reduced sugar, source of fibre and high protein, and a product cannot use them unless it meets the threshold. The US has an equivalent set of defined nutrient content claims. Those words mean something. The words doing most of the halo work are the ones with no definition at all: natural, wholesome, goodness, clean, real, artisan, inspired by. A product can print those over any recipe. Watch also for relative claims, because 30% less fat is measured against the original product, not against a sensible target, and 30% less than a lot is still a lot. The food label claims explainer lists which terms carry a threshold and what each threshold is.

Five checks that take ten seconds each

• Compare per 100 g, never per serving. Serving sizes are chosen by the manufacturer and shrink conveniently on products with awkward numbers.
• Find the ordinary version and read the same three lines. If they match, you are paying for the front of the pack.
• Read the first three ingredients. They are in descending order by weight, so if sugar or oil is up there, the category word on the front is decorative.
• Ask what replaced the removed nutrient. Fat out usually means starch, sugar or salt in.
• Check whether the claim word is a defined term. Low, reduced, source of and high are regulated. Natural and wholesome are not.

None of this is an argument against buying any of these products. It is an argument for buying them knowing what they are, which is the whole point of putting the numbers on the pack in the first place. To run the check on anything in your kitchen, scan it and its ordinary counterpart into the comparison tool.

Sources

• EU Regulation 1924/2006: nutrition and health claims made on foods, and the conditions each claim must meet
• US Food and Drug Administration: label claims for foods, including defined nutrient content claims
• USDA FoodData Central: reference composition for the underlying foods