some random thoughts: these companies benefit from _vague_ terms like "chocolate" and exploit customer's pre-conceived notion of what these terms actually mean

some random thoughts: these companies benefit from _vague_ terms like "chocolate" and exploit customer's pre-conceived notion of what these terms actually mean. Of course no scientific study is going to find that Mars/snickers bars are good for you. The trick is to make sure the good result from cocoa bean studies gets linked to your Mars/snickers/product. So the process might look like this.. 1. A compound in raw cocoa bean is found to help blood levels 2. Cocoa powder is made from cocoa beans, therefor cocoa powder is healthy 3. Chocolate with high cocoa powder content should also be healthy 4. "Chocolate" is healthy 5. Mars/snickers is chocolate right? Therefor these products are also healthy. Posts on health blogs, marketing campaigns, etc. water down the results from (1) and draw their own conclusions, and there you go. People go out and by all kinds of chocolate products. Similar stuff happen with things like green tea (super healthy, but your sugar drenched matcha latte is not), fruits and vegetables in general. A "productized" version of these raw foods is easier to control and cheaper than the real deal. That's the sad reality I guess. edit: Key take... it's not that sponsored studies are necessarily misleading or "fake". It's the purpose of exploiting the key results of the study by somehow linking them with your product in a positive way!