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(EMAILWIRE.COM, February 18, 2011 ) Fort Lauderdale, Florida
By Sheila Danzig
Galeos, a California company whose miso-based dressings have been heavily marketed on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” by celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels, now finds itself the target of a class action lawsuit for allegedly grossly misrepresenting the low calorie, low fat claims of its products.
U.S. food labeling laws permit a 20% margin for error, saying discrepancies can and do happen. However, results from an independent laboratory test requested by the law firm Paris, Ackerman and Schmierer, LLP, of Roseland, NJ, NJ, and performed by Kappa Laboratories, indicate the contained fat and calories to be substantially understated — roughly four times as many calories and nearly six times the fat claimed by the manufacturer. Paris, Ackerman and Schmierer were the first to file a class action lawsuit against Galeos and its principals.
"As a central part of their advertising and sale of their line of Miso Dressings, Galeos employed marketing campaigns pursuant to which they made false and misleading claims concerning the nutritional information of its products," the lawsuit claims.
“The overwhelming reactions from consumers who have purchased these dressings have been shock, anger, and disappointment. We receive at least five emails a week from people who are devastated to learn that lab results show the dressings are not the healthy low-fat alternatives they are marketed as,” states David Paris of Paris, Ackerman and Schmierer.
“It is problematic that two reputable laboratories returned with test results showing fat, calorie, and carbohydrate values far in excess of those reported on the product labels,” Paris said, referring to a second independent laboratory finding. “Any commitment to consistent and accurate labeling on the part of the company starts with addressing these issues.”
I agree. As a lifelong dieter, living in South Florida, I was ecstatic when I first sampled Galeos’ Miso Sesame low fat dressing. Demand from fans of “The Biggest Loser” was such that my local supermarket couldn’t stock it fast enough. In desperation, I began buying it by the gallon directly from Galeos and sharing it with my friends. We were all amazed at how delicious such a low fat dressing could be. We assumed because it was aggressively touted on “The Biggest Loser” and used by Duke University’s weight loss program that it surely must be all it was promising to be.
I was stunned when reports emerged indicating that the fat and calorie levels were in fact comparable to full fat dressings, a whopping 300% more calories and 400% or more fat than the label stated.
I wasted no time in contacting Andrei Leontieff, the owner of Galeos, who said that, in light of these claims, they had retested their dressings. He stated that the results were comparable to what Galeos had originally claimed. However, Galeos refused to release the actual lab results to me for this story. And, when I contacted the two labs that performed the analyses for Galeos, they both refused to release their official findings to any third party.
However, Galeos has conceded to issue refunds to any dissatisfied customer, instructing them to fill out a refund request on their website which can be found at: http://www.galeoscafe.com/customer_satisfaction.html.
As a fan of Galeos salad dressings, I want to believe them when they say their products really are a dieterÂ’s dream. But this is starting to look more and more like a dieterÂ’s worst nightmare.
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