This is going to be a different sort of article than what you're used to reading here. But I could not let this topic pass by without giving my two cents.
I am SO angry guys. You have no clue.
In today’s day and age, it unfortunately needs to be said that we shouldn’t be trusting social media influencers with our children’s health during a critical period of their growth and development.
Mr. Beast, KSI, and Logan Paul are acutely aware of the massive influence they have over young people on social media and are now angling to use this influence to circumvent their responsibility to build the quality product they claim to promote.
Let’s face it. These dudes know they could pour sucralose on dog poop, call it chocolate, and shill it out to kids knowing full well their parents will be pestered into oblivion to buy it for them.
With that knowledge, really what is their incentive to invest time, resources, and money to formulate a product that’s actually healthy?
Now there’s a lot that pisses me off about Lunchly, but let’s start with the most heinous marketing tactic: labeling the sodium and potassium content as “electrolytes.”
This is a deliberate attempt at using consumers’ generally positive association of the word “electrolyte” with health to justify the high sodium content. We don’t call high-sodium, ultra processed foods “electrolyte-rich” and then re-package them as healthy, right?
Of course not.
It is interesting that the electrolytes are primarily focused on potassium in Logan Paul's famous PRIME drink included in the kit, compared to potassium in a Capri Sun often included in Lunchables, without any mention of potassium in the food itself.
To be frank, it doesn’t make much sense that children should be encouraged to consume electrolytes in the first place because, well I don’t know, CHILDREN AREN’T ATHLETES. For the most part, even children that do participate in sports do not perform them to the intensity that they need electrolytes from sports drinks or any other source.
The Lunchly website boasts nutritional comparisons of “Them vs Us” to show how Lunchly stacks up to Lunchables, but key nutrients are missing from these charts including sodium and saturated fat, two potentially harmful nutrients that parents deserve to be informed about if they are to be convinced they are making a healthier decision for their children.
This is probably due to the fact that the saturated fat and sodium content of Lunchables and Lunchly are so similar, our influencer trio knew it wouldn’t look as great for them to include this data in their marketing.
Now listen to this. The USDA guidelines for school age children recommend that a single lunch meal not contain more than 10% of calories from saturated fat.
Tell me why every one of Lunchly’s meal kits includes at least 25% to 35% of calories from saturated fat.
Additionally, each of their meals contain 12-14% of calories from added sugars which fails to meet the USDA recommendation that kid’s lunches contain 10% or less calories from added sugar.
Although Lunchly's creators love to boast on their site and social media that the sugar content is lower than Lunchables, this is a bait and switch.
When I looked closer at the nutrition facts of both Lunchly and Lunchables, it became clear that most of the sugar in Lunchables comes from the beverage Capri Sun, whereas the beverage in Lunchly is PRIME, which is sweetened artificially.
So, does this make Lunchly healthier? It depends on how parents feel about giving their children artificial sweeteners daily at lunchtime. While artificial sweeteners still haven’t been proven to be inherently harmful, at least not compared to the solid science we have on refined sugar, this still doesn’t mean that giving your kid a sports drink for lunch everyday is a healthier choice.
Seriously, is Logan Paul such a megalomaniac he couldn’t help but shove his brand down the throats of the impressionable instead of just giving them a damn bottle of orange juice? Fresh orange juice has the same amount of “electrolytes,” by the way....and some actual nutrients to boot.
Now one thing I do have to hand to Lunchly is its use of real cheese rather than “cheese products” that are used in Lunchables. However, there are other ingredients in Lunchly kits that are still as ultraprocessed as their competitor.
Furthermore, the USDA recommends that a product must contain at least 50% whole grains when grains are included, and Lunchly products include no whole grains in any of their kit offerings.
As a dietitian, if these influencers were truly on a mission to make a better-for-you lunch kit option than Lunchables, formulating a product to fit the USDA guidelines for children should have been the starting point.
But these boys clearly weren’t interested in making a better lunch. They were interested in another stream of income.
The influence and net worth of Mr. Beast and Logan Paul alone certainly affords them the resources, be it consultation from nutrition professionals and/or food scientists, to easily formulate such a product.
Instead, Logan Paul threw his own energy drink and Mr. Beast his branded candy bar into some meal kits, sprinkled them with some real cheese and called it an innovation.
I think Mr. Paul’s own words sums up why parents shouldn’t trust Lunchly with their children’s nutrition. “Yes, we could have made a lunch meal with carrots, celery, and apple slices, but I don’t eat that shit,” says Logan.
As someone who is a pro wrestler or whatever he does, I have to say this isn't something to proudly proclaim. At least in my sports dietitian opinion.
Anyway, Mr. Paul continues. “I wouldn’t sell something that I don’t eat myself, and I wouldn’t find myself eating a carrot, celery, and apple slice lunch.”
Well, guess what Logan? These meals aren’t for you.
They are for the children that look up to you and follow your influence so closely, which is what pays your bills. So, at the very least you can do right by these kids and use your reach and resources ethically.
Call me crazy, but I think children should be encouraged to eat shit like apple slices and celery.
In my opinion, using this trio’s social media influence to market Lunchly as a healthier alternative to Lunchables is very problematic and disturbing. It paints a dangerous picture for our future if any combination of money and internet reach can turn YouTubers into food moguls when it’s clear they don’t have any idea what the hell they are doing in the health space.
What makes it even worse is that health professionals around the world have tried to push back and educate this team on how to improve Lunchly to turn them into what they are marketing themselves to be – a better lunch kit that’s actually healthier for children.
And yet, this criticism has been met with Logan Paul calling doctors “morons” and the influencers doubling down on why their product is indeed better without any nutritional science to justify their stance.
What is most infuriating is Mr. Beast cites cost as one of the reasons they have mimicked Lunchables’ offerings of pizza and nachos for lunch rather than objectively healthier meals like “chicken and broccoli.”
Give me a break, Jimmy. I see you give away cars on a regular basis and virtually torture people for YouTube views by doing things like locking them into rooms for a chance to win $50,000 or whatever.
You can’t invest any of that bountiful wealth towards actually improving the health of our youth? Many of whom are giving you the engagement to keep your bank balance climbing in the first place?
At the risk of having these boys’ lawyers after me, I’ll just wrap this up by saying that any nutrition professional can see that neither Lunchly nor Lunchables is a healthy option for your child’s lunch, but only one brand loudly claims to be.