Scam Patrol!

Tim Anderson finds his way through the kids’ food marketing maze. Illustration by Ming Yue.

Simply to exist in our unfettered free-market society is to be scammed, all the time, every day. We have to pay for water, which, famously, falls freely from mountaintops and the sky. If you’re a parent, you’re doubly scammed, because our kids constantly compel us to buy stuff that we know is a rip-off. Too often, by the time it occurs to me that I might be getting conned, it’s too late and I’ve already bought the thing. So, to try and become less of a chump, I’m investigating four suspicious phenomena in the world of kids’ food, to answer that nagging question: is this a scam?

CASE NO. 1: FRUIT SHOOTS

Allegations : Compared with squash in other formats, they’re a tremendous waste of money and plastic. And do they even contain fruit?