The Playbook: Sell Sugar, Call It Wellness

GoMacro, LLC, a Wisconsin company, built an entire product empire on a single powerful lie: that its Protein Bars, Snack Bars, and Kids MacroBars are healthy food choices. The labels say “Finally – a bar that’s both delicious and good for you!” They say “Live Long,” “Eat Positive,” and “Be Well.” They print a heart vignette. The company’s website declares it “believe[s] in the power of a balanced, plant-based lifestyle that is good for you” and that “all of [its] products provide a nutritional benefit.”

GoMacro knew exactly why those words matter. Its own CEO publicly cited research showing 88% of consumers are willing to pay more for healthier foods, with a mean price premium of approximately 30.7% and a ceiling as high as 91.5% more. The company explicitly linked its health marketing strategy to a Forbes article naming its CEO one of the women who “Runs the Better-For-You-Food World.” Healthy branding is the product GoMacro actually sells; the bars are just the delivery mechanism.

The complaint, filed July 8, 2025, by plaintiff Leah Testone on behalf of herself and a nationwide class, alleges that GoMacro’s health claims are false and highly misleading because a vast body of peer-reviewed science establishes that the sugar levels in these bars actively increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, liver disease, and metabolic syndrome. GoMacro collected premium prices for products that, the science says, are doing the opposite of what the label promises.

The Numbers GoMacro Hoped You’d Never Do

The Protein Bars in GoMacro’s lineup contain between 7 and 13 grams of added sugar per bar, representing 11% to 19.3% of each bar’s total calories. The Snack Bars contain 9 to 10 grams of added sugar, accounting for 14.4% to 20% of calories. The Kids MacroBars contain 4 to 6 grams of added sugar, representing 14.5% to 24% of calories. The federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans define a healthy dietary pattern as one where added sugars stay below 5% of daily caloric intake. Every single GoMacro product in the complaint blows past that limit, several of them by a factor of nearly five.

The FDA now agrees. A regulation finalized in December 2024 and in effect since April 2025 bars any food from using the word “healthy” as a nutrient content claim if it contains more than 2 grams of added sugar per serving. GoMacro’s products contain 4 to 13 grams. GoMacro cannot legally call these bars “healthy” under current federal law, and it has been calling them exactly that for at least four years.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What This Sugar Actually Does to a Human Body

The complaint is a 41-page citation engine for something GoMacro apparently never wanted you to read. Peer-reviewed studies in JAMA, The Lancet, Circulation, and a dozen other journals collectively describe a public health catastrophe tied directly to the kind of added sugar GoMacro packs into every bar. These are diseases. Real ones. And the people most harmed are ordinary people who tried to make a responsible food choice and got lied to by a company that called itself a wellness brand.

Start with the heart. Cardiovascular disease affects nearly half of all American adults. Coronary artery disease alone killed more than 380,000 people in 2020. Every year, more than 800,000 Americans have a heart attack. The NHANES data in the complaint is damning: adults who consumed 10% to 24.9% of their calories from added sugar had a 30% greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to those who kept added sugar below 5%. GoMacro’s bars deliver up to 19.3% of calories from added sugar in a single serving. A consumer eating one of these bars as part of a regular routine is, according to the science GoMacro never disclosed, meaningfully raising their risk of dying from a heart attack.

Then there is the liver. Because the liver metabolizes fructose from sugar almost identically to the way it metabolizes alcohol, the United States is seeing, for the first time in recorded history, alcohol-related liver diseases appearing in children. Approximately 13% of American children already suffer from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). In adults, 31% are estimated to have NAFLD. About 6 million Americans have progressed to the far more dangerous stage, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH is now the third-leading reason for liver transplants in America. A liver transplant is not a minor inconvenience; it is major surgery with a lifetime of anti-rejection drugs, immunosuppression, and chronic monitoring, all of which carry their own cascading health consequences.

The diabetes numbers are equally brutal. 37.3 million Americans have diabetes. More than 96 million American adults have prediabetes. Diabetes causes kidney failure, lower-limb amputations, and blindness. It doubles the risk of colon and pancreatic cancers. It is strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The complaint cites a landmark study of more than 50,000 women from the Nurses’ Health Study showing that women who consumed the equivalent of one sugar-sweetened drink per day had an 83% greater relative risk of developing type 2 diabetes. That threshold, 35 to 37.5 grams of added sugar per day, is the kind of total that a GoMacro consumer could approach with just two or three bars.

The cruelest part of this story sits in the Kids MacroBar section. GoMacro markets these bars to children as young as one year old. Three flavors of the Kids MacroBar, the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Double Chocolate Brownie, and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, derive exactly 24% of their total calories from added sugar. A 2020 study of preschool children published in Preventive Medicine Reports found that higher consumption of added sugar was significantly associated with elevated cardiometabolic risk scores in young children. The researchers explicitly called for limiting added sugar in early childhood to reduce “the potential long-term burden” of cardiometabolic disease. GoMacro read the same nutrition science landscape the rest of the industry can access. The company chose to put a heart sticker on the packaging and call it a day.

The 2016 isocaloric study cited in the complaint provides perhaps the most damning evidence of all. Researchers removed added sugar from the diets of 43 obese children aged 8 to 19, replacing the sugar calories with starch calories so that total calorie intake and macronutrient ratios stayed the same. After just nine days, diastolic blood pressure dropped by 5 points, fasting insulin levels fell by 50%, and every measure of metabolic function improved significantly. The conclusion: added sugar is independently toxic, regardless of calories or weight. This is not a fringe finding; it was published in Obesity (Silver Spring) and has been widely replicated. GoMacro sells a product it labels “good for you” that, the science says, is doing measurable biological damage to anyone eating it regularly, including children starting at age one.

Legal Receipts: Their Words, on the Record

“Despite representing that the Products are healthy, the Protein Bars actually contain 7-13 grams of added sugar, representing 11-19% of the calories in the Products. The Snack Bars contain 9-10 grams of added sugar, representing 14-20% of calories. And the Kids Bar — which Defendant knows are consumed by children as young as one-year old — contain 4-6 grams of added sugar, representing 14-24% of those bars’ calories.” — Testone v. Go Macro, LLC, Class Action Complaint, ¶4 (July 8, 2025)

“Go Macro is well aware consumers are willing to buy and to pay more for foods they perceive as healthy. For example, on its website, Go Macro links to a Forbes article titled ‘Who Runs the Better-For-You-Food World? These 6 Women’ (which includes the CEO & Cofounder of Go Macro), stating, ‘[c]onsumers are growing increasingly savvy about what goes into the food they eat’ and that ‘they’re voting with their dollars for organic, natural products without chemicals and additives.'” — Testone v. Go Macro, LLC, Class Action Complaint, ¶14 (July 8, 2025)

“In fact, Go Macro advises consumers pay little heed to the nutrition facts panel, and instead focus on the ingredient list, saying, ‘It is more important to know where your calories, carbohydrates, fat, etc. are coming from than just the numbers.'” — Testone v. Go Macro, LLC, Class Action Complaint, ¶63 (July 8, 2025)

“Go Macro is further under a duty to disclose this information because it was in a superior position to know of the dangers presented by the added sugars in the Products, as it is a large, sophisticated company that holds itself out as having expert knowledge regarding the health impact of consuming the Products. By its own account, it is one of just six companies that ‘Runs the Better-For-You-World.'” — Testone v. Go Macro, LLC, Class Action Complaint, ¶60 (July 8, 2025)

“Go Macro’s conduct with respect to the labeling, advertising, and sale of the Products was unfair because Go Macro’s conduct was immoral, unethical, unscrupulous, or substantially injurious to consumers, and the utility of its conduct, if any, does not outweigh the gravity of the harm to its victims.” — Testone v. Go Macro, LLC, Class Action Complaint, ¶115 (July 8, 2025)

“Plaintiff and the Class lost money as a result of Go Macro’s deceptive claims, omissions, and practices in that they did not receive what they paid for when purchasing the Products. Instead of receiving products that were healthy, Plaintiff and the Class received products likely to increase risk of disease when consumed regularly.” — Testone v. Go Macro, LLC, Class Action Complaint, ¶¶94-95 (July 8, 2025)

Societal Impact Mapping

Public Health: A Nationwide Sugar Tax Paid in Bodies

The public health damage described in this complaint is systematic. The complaint cites data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) establishing that cardiovascular diseases affect nearly half of all American adults and that added sugar consumption raises cardiovascular mortality risk exponentially. Americans who get 25% or more of their calories from added sugar face a 275% greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than those who stay below 5%. GoMacro has spent at least four years selling bars that put consumers squarely in the dangerous range, while simultaneously advertising those bars as heart-healthy with a literal heart logo on the packaging.

The diabetes connection documented in the complaint implicates the entire country’s chronic disease crisis. About 1 in 3 American adults has metabolic syndrome, placing them at elevated risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, polycystic ovary syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and chronic kidney disease. The complaint cites an econometric analysis showing that an increase of 150 calories per day in sugar produces an 11-fold greater rise in national diabetes prevalence compared to the same 150 calories from non-sugar sources. GoMacro’s products contribute to exactly this pattern while sporting “wellness” branding that signals to consumers they are making a responsible choice.

The liver disease dimension is particularly stark. The complaint documents that since 1980, the incidence of NAFLD and NASH has doubled alongside rising fructose consumption. Approximately 600,000 Americans have progressed to NASH-related cirrhosis, a condition that either requires a liver transplant or leads to death. Most people with NASH also have type 2 diabetes, a cascading multi-organ failure that the complaint traces directly to excessive added sugar intake. GoMacro’s Kids MacroBars, marketed to children as young as one, contribute fructose loads that the liver must metabolize identically to alcohol, producing exactly the hepatic fat accumulation that drives NAFLD. The U.S. is seeing, for the first time, alcohol-type liver diseases in children. GoMacro is not the sole cause of that crisis, but the complaint alleges it is a willing participant that chose to call its products “good for you” rather than disclose the risk.

Economic Inequality: The Premium Price of a Lie

GoMacro’s strategy explicitly targeted health-conscious consumers who are willing to pay premium prices, up to 91.5% more, for food they believe is better for them. The complaint documents that GoMacro used its “wellness” positioning to charge more than comparable products without misleading labeling. This means the people most financially harmed are the consumers who cared most about their health, who went to Whole Foods, CVS, and Walgreens specifically looking for a responsible snack choice, and who paid a premium for a product that, the science establishes, was working against their health goals the entire time.

The lawsuit identifies plaintiff Leah Testone as a lay consumer who purchased GoMacro bars 10 to 15 times per year for at least four years, from locations including Whole Foods, CVS, Walgreens, and Target stores across San Diego and Los Angeles counties. She paid more because she believed the health claims. The complaint alleges the products were worth less than what she and every class member paid, because a food product that increases disease risk when consumed regularly is, by definition, not delivering the value its premium health-brand price tag promises.

The broader class spans the entire United States. Because the complaint exceeds $5,000,000 in controversy (enough to fund roughly 100 families’ annual grocery budgets), it qualifies under the Class Action Fairness Act. Every consumer who paid GoMacro’s health-brand premium for a product that GoMacro knew contained sugar levels incompatible with its own marketing claims is a member of that class. The systemic nature of this deception is reflected in the prayer for relief: the plaintiffs seek corrective advertising, destruction of all misleading materials, product recalls, disgorgement of profits, and punitive damages. The company collected money by making people believe they were investing in their health. They were not.