Website selling banana chips makes health and nutrient claims

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Created on 07, December, 2020

A website that sells nuts and dried fruit says bananas can help cure or treat everything from upset stomachs, goiter and viruses to colon cancer...

On the page where the website sells dried banana chips, the marketing content makes claims for fresh bananas, including claims they can help treat or cure various conditions and diseases. Apart from the fact that bananas fried in oil (the product being sold) have a very different nutrition profile than fresh bananas, it is illegal to state or imply that any food product can help cure or treat a disease or medical condition.

Additionally, the nutrient claims of "high in potassium" and a good source of vitamin C, B-6 and fiber are not supported by the Nutrition Facts shown for the chips (very low or zero, or, in the case of potassium and B-6, no data shown). Fresh bananas are just barely a good source of those nutrients (and not "high" in potassium, for which it would need to contain 20% of the Daily Value, twice what they actually have). The dried/fried product... definitely not even a good source.