From exclusive items to portion sizes, we wanted to find all the differences between breakfast foods in the US and the UK. This is "Food Wars."

• I graduated from college in 2011 when the job market was still recovering from the recession.
• I thought I'd find a full-time job in my field quickly, but I was forced to take one at Chick-fil-A.
• Although it was frustrating to be a grad working in fast food, I was able to support my family.

I figured that once I graduated from college, I would have no problem stepping into an entry-level position in journalism or publishing. I learned very quickly that the post-recession job market in 2011 had changed everything.

Since my partner and I had adopted our first child in college, I had a young family to support, so finding a job after graduation was important.

I moved my family from West Texas to Fort Worth so that I could access a larger job market, but the combination of idealistic naivety and unrealistic expectations got in the way of my job hunt. I soon found myself in places I never thought I would be: a job seeker event and, at one point, a food bank.

For the first few months after graduation, the stress of job-hunting and not having enough money to make ends meet affected my young family.

After several months of holding back, I finally broke down and decided to apply for a job at the Chick-fil-A close to our house. I landed an interview quickly and was immediately offered an entry-level cashier position.

Before I knew it, I was dressed in full Chick-fil-A red and black, standing at the ready and asking customers what types of sauces they wanted with their nuggets.

No, I wasn't "living my best life" or harnessing the American dream, but that wasn't the point. I was making money for my family. Plus, the job both humbled and empowered me.

I first struggled to adapt to my new job

It wasn't easy for me to settle into the restaurant position since my hopes had been firmly set on a salary with benefits.

I was a college graduate working a job I never saw myself doing. At times, I felt like I had taken a step in the wrong direction. I found myself struggling with anger and frustration.

However, once I overcame my frustration, I noticed the real benefits of my gig.

For example, I worked with some inspiring people: high school students putting themselves out there to get some work experience, the cooks who took me under their wing (and caught me up on my Spanish), and our store owner who cared about people over profit.

It felt good to earn for my family in a positive environment while I waited to determine my next step.

My Chick-fil-A job empowered me, too

Taking that job in a fast-food restaurant didn't solve all of our problems, but it gave me a new outlook on postgrad life.

While it wasn't my dream job, I could make a monthly wage, giving me the breathing room to look for other work opportunities that made sense for a recent college graduate.

It took patience and willingness to work while waiting for another opportunity. In doing so, the job also taught my family a powerful lesson: If we can approach tough situations with the willingness to do what it takes with humility, we're more likely to survive our struggles.

Being willing to take the opportunities in front of you, even if they don't feel like enough at the time, can lead to what you need.

I have no regrets

After working at Chick-fil-A for eight months, I found work more closely aligned with my career goals.

Thanks to my short stint in the service industry, I now own a coffee company in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The journey has also led my partner into her private practice as a clinical therapist. Not only have our careers grown, but 13 years later, our family has grown from three to six.

I am deeply grateful for our family's Chick-fil-A era because I learned a lot while responding to customers with "my pleasure."

It was my pleasure, in the end, to have the opportunity for growth and the ability to lay a healthy foundation for our family.

• Some McDonald's restaurants are found in downright strange locations.
• One McDonald's restaurant in Taupo, New Zealand, is located inside a decommissioned plane.
• A glass-walled McDonald's restaurant has received an award for its impressive architecture.

Some McDonald's locations go far beyond the typical drive-thru experience, offering unique and unforgettable dining settings that redefine the concept of fast food.

From a New Zealand McDonald's located inside a decommissioned plane to multiple restaurants built inside historic homes, McDonald's has transformed iconic and unconventional spaces into mind-blowing dining locations.

Many restaurants have also been changed to reflect local laws. In Sedona, Arizona, there's a McDonald's with turquoise arches instead of the iconic golden ones, designed to complement the area's natural red rock scenery, and a glass-walled McDonald's restaurant in Georgia has received an award for its impressive architecture.

Here are some of the weirdest and most extraordinary McDonald's restaurants around the globe.

The McDonald's location in Downey, California, is the oldest McDonald's restaurant that still looks as it did when it first opened.

It is the oldest surviving McDonald's location in the world. It doesn't even have a drive-thru — instead, customers walk up to the restaurant's windows to order.

The location also features a vintage McDonald's sign with the fast-food brand's old mascot.

Speedee, a chef with a hamburger for a head, appeared on the original McDonald's signs alongside the brand's logo of two interlocking golden arches.

Some signs also advertised the low price of McDonald's hamburgers — just 15 cents at the time.

This McDonald's restaurant in Hangzhou, China, is located inside a historic villa that once housed a former Taiwanese leader.

Before being converted into a McDonald's and McCafe restaurant, the building was known as a cultural relic that was the residence of politician Chiang Ching-kuo for one month during the 1940s, CNN reported.

The restaurant has been called "the most controversial McDonald's outlet in the world."

CNN reported that many locals objected to the restaurant opening inside the historic building, calling it a prime example of Western commercialism invading Chinese culture.

However, since opening in 2015, the restaurant has become somewhat of a tourist attraction, welcoming visitors from all over the world.

There's also an eye-catching McDonald's on Dongmen Street in Shenzhen, China.

The restaurant opened on October 8, 1990, in Shenzhen's special economic zone.

The South China Morning Post reported that on its opening day, the unique McDonald's received over 40,000 customers despite only having a maximum seating capacity of 460. It was the first McDonald's to open in mainland China, which made it a popular destination for locals and tourists at the time.

The building occupies three floors and features traditional-looking pagoda-style roofs.

The restaurant's roof is still adorned with the iconic golden arches to make it recognizable to passersby.

Author and photojournalist Gary He, who's dined at over 100 McDonald's restaurants around the world, told Business Insider it was one of the most "epic" locations he's ever visited. 

This McDonald's restaurant in Taupo, New Zealand, is located inside a decommissioned plane.

Named one of the "world's coolest McDonald's" on a sign outside the restaurant, customers can enjoy everything from a classic Big Mac to Chicken McNuggets and McCafe beverages inside the plane.

There's even airplane-style seating where customers can sit and enjoy their food.

Visitors to this unique McDonald's restaurant can also view the D3 plane's cockpit.

This McDonald's restaurant in Clifton Hill, Melbourne, Australia, is designed in the art-deco style of the 1920s and '30s.

The building was originally the United Kingdom Hotel and was designed by architect James Hastie Wardrop.

Constructed between 1937 and 1938, this restaurant has been called one of the most beautiful McDonald's buildings in the world.

Built in 1983, the Rock-N-Roll McDonald's in Chicago was known nationwide for its themed decor.

The restaurant, which spanned two floors and was a replica of Ray Kroc's first McDonald's, was filled with music and pop-culture memorabilia.

The decor was quintessentially '80s, but in 2017, the fast-food giant decided to fully renovate and modernize the location.

After the restaurant was partially demolished and modernized, the memorabilia once housed in the restaurant went into the franchise owner's personal collection, The Chicago Tribune reported.

Surprisingly, another iconic McDonald's restaurant that has closed for good is the chain's flashy Times Square location.

Known for its giant marquee featuring thousands of light bulbs, the restaurant — perhaps surprisingly — closed in 2020 not as a result of the coronavirus pandemic but rather as part of McDonald's regular review of its restaurant portfolio, a spokesperson told NBC.

However, there's a new McDonald's restaurant located in Times Square, meaning you can still get your fix.

This McDonald's in Sedona, Arizona, is the only one in the world with turquoise arches.

The restaurant, which was built in 1993, is located in one of Arizona's most beautiful cities; it's known for its awe-inspiring red-rock mountains, canyon walls, and pine forests. 

The building has to adhere to Sedona's strict guidelines on building design and signage.

While the bright yellow color of most McDonald's signs might work in other parts of the country, the turquoise color chosen by the Sedona, Arizona, location blends much better with the surrounding landscape.

Sedona also has strict restrictions on the height of buildings and signage, which is why the famous arches are placed lower than at most other McDonald's restaurants.

A now-closed McDonald's in Houston was space-themed to pay homage to the nearby NASA space center.

On top of the large McDonald's restaurant, which also had a play place, was a statue of a NASA astronaut holding a container of fries.

The theme continued inside the restaurant.

Ronald McDonald and the rest of the "McDonaldland" characters lined the walls wearing space suits and posing against a starry background.

The world's first floating McDonald's restaurant opened in St. Louis in 1980.

Moored slightly south of the Gateway Arch on the Mississippi River, this McDonald's was the very first McDonald's to be opened on a riverboat.

It was open for 20 years before closing in 2000.

The McDonald's restaurant in Freeport, Maine, looks much more like a house than a standard fast-food franchise.

Some McDonald's locations attempt to blend in with the local buildings and are designed more sympathetically. 

This McDonald's location, however, was actually built inside a preexisting colonial mansion that's more than 150 years old. Located in Freeport, a small seaside town in Maine, the building was converted into the town's only McDonald's in 1984.

This Parisian McDonald's is located in a historic building built in 1892.

The restaurant is on Rue Saint-Lazare in Paris, France. Though the building is now a McDonald's, it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Referred to as the "flying saucer McDonald's," this unique fast-food restaurant in Roswell, New Mexico, is truly out of this world.

Inspired by Roswell's extraterrestrial history, the interior of the spaceship contains a space-themed play area.

This McDonald's restaurant in Kristiansand, Norway, was converted from an old bank building.

Though you might think patrons can stroll up the steps to enter one of the most unusual McDonald's buildings in the world, customers actually enter from a side entrance.

A McDonald's in São Paulo, Brazil, is similarly grandiose — at one point it even had cartoonish fry sculptures on the front of the building.

The building almost resembles the White House. It's known as the Méqui1000 because it was the 1,000th McDonald's to open in Brazil.

However, past its columns and grand facade, customers can still enjoy McDonald's favorites like the Big Mac or Brazilian menu items like the McCrispy Chicken Legend and the cheddar McMelt.

A McDonald's location in Porto, Portugal, was previously occupied by Cafe Imperial, a famous coffee shop open in the city since the 1930s.

The giant bronze eagle, designed by Portuguese sculptor Henrique Moreira, is usually the first thing customers notice when they approach the restaurant. 

Inside the restaurant, guests find glamorous details like crystal chandeliers and a massive stained glass window behind the counter.

The colorful window is original to the coffee shop that previously occupied the space, and it features beautiful coffee-related scenes.

The restaurant has been called the world's most beautiful McDonald's.

Independence, Ohio, is home to a McDonald's that's known as one of the fanciest fast-food restaurants in the country.

It was designed in accordance with building requirements from the city.

Inside, guests are greeted by gold chandeliers and a majestic banister.

"The building is unique to any I have ever seen and it is a joy to take a break and walk to the second floor and enjoy the view while I enjoy breakfast or lunch," wrote one TripAdvisor user.

This McDonald's is found in Barstow Station, a fake train station in Barstow, California.

The "train station" opened in 1975, and is also occupied by a Starbucks and a Popeyes.

The restaurant is surrounded by passenger train cars, which are used as dining areas.

Despite having a unique theme, the restaurant still serves up McDonald's favorites.

A McDonald's restaurant is also found inside the historic Denton House on Long Island, New York.

The building was originally an 18th-century farmhouse that was converted into a Georgian-style mansion in the 1860s.

McDonald's originally intended to knock the building down after it was purchased in 1985.

However, Atlas Obscura reported that the fast-food giant faced pressure from preservationists to restore the home to its former grandeur.

The town then allowed the chain to build onto the existing building to create space for a drive-thru. 

There's also a McDonald's inside Budapest's beautiful Western Railway Station.

The station was built in 1877 by the Eiffel Company, which also built the Eiffel Tower. The New York Post reported that the restaurant temporarily closed before being reopened in September after an extensive renovation.

This unique McDonald's location can be found in Batumi, Georgia.

Located in downtown Batumi, this McDonald's stands out for its reflective glass exterior. Patrons eating inside the restaurant can also gaze out onto the pool of water and manicured grass surrounding the building.

Inside, the restaurant's furnishings are similarly modern in design.

This location was built in 2013 and won the award for The Best Commercial Building of 2014 by the architecture website ArchDaily.

In spring, flowers bloom on the lawns.

This makes for a great photo-op or simply a beautiful sight while patrons eat their meals.

This McDonald's restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina, was renovated to fit with the local guidelines from the nearby Biltmore Estate.

Resembling a ski lodge, the restaurant fits in perfectly in the mountain town. However, the inside is grander than perhaps any outside viewer could expect.

The restaurant features red-oak tables, a self-playing baby grand piano, wrought-iron railings, and a fireplace.

The interior is also decorated with wallpaper, pieces of art, and hanging chandeliers. 

The McSki in Sälen, Sweden, looks straight out of a fairytale.

Located in Lindvallen, one of Sweden's premier ski resorts, this one-of-a-kind "ski-thru" McDonald's allows guests to enter the building and order their food without ever even removing their skis. 

Gary He told BI that it was the most unusual location he had ever visited. 

"The air is so clean and crisp — it's like being on top of the world," He said. "When I visited, it wasn't even busy. It was just me, the McSki, and the mountains. I was just hanging out and enjoying myself."

The 1988 buddy-comedy action flick "Midnight Run" had an unexpected impact on the restaurant industry. While the romp about a bounty hunter transporting an accountant across the country didn't make a box-office splash, one line stuck around.

"A restaurant is a very tricky investment," the accountant, played by Charles Grodin, tells the bounty hunter, played by Robert DeNiro. DeNiro's character dreams of opening a coffee shop with his big score, but the accountant shuts him down: "More than half of them go under within the six months."

The idea that restaurants are a bad investment predates the film, but the quote lodged in people's minds. Over the past 20 years as a cook, restaurant critic, and food writer, I've heard Grodin's risk assessment quoted repeatedly, almost verbatim. But if restaurants really are a lousy investment, then why would private-equity firms be dumping billions into the sector? Data from PitchBook found that private-equity investments into fast-casual restaurants grew from $7.7 million in 2013 to $231 million in 2023 — a nearly 3,000% increase.

In 2024 alone, Blackstone purchased 1,400 Tropical Smoothie Cafes and a majority stake in Jersey Mike's — deals that gave the chains multi-billion-dollar valuations. Sycamore Partners also bought 250 Playa Bowls locations. Before its IPO in 2023, the Mediterranean eatery Cava raised nearly $750 million from private investors. Meanwhile, SoftBank Vision Fund has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into restaurant tech over the past decade.

All that cash has led to a boom in places like Chipotle, Shake Shake, and Sweetgreen. Between 2009 and 2018, the number of fast-casual restaurants in America doubled, while sales have nearly tripled. Meanwhile, the amount of money Americans spend eating out has jumped by nearly 60% since 2009. That doesn't exactly sound like a lousy investment.

The trouble is that private equity has a knack for destroying businesses. Red Lobster declared bankruptcy earlier this year after 10 years under private-equity management, Toys "R" Us famously shut down following a private-equity takeover, and even hospitals have struggled after private equity got involved. The cash infusion to wannabe chains and franchises has also made it harder for independently funded restaurants to compete for customers, real estate, and staff. When the gravy train stops, fast-casual restaurants are going to be in trouble.

To understand why private equity is pouring money into restaurants, we have to start with the appeal of the fast-casual model. In some ways, it's the golden mean of restaurants. You can charge twice as much for a meal at a fast-casual spot as you can at a fast-food joint. In Manhattan, a Burger King cheeseburger costs $3.40, whereas a Shake Shack burger will run you $7.79. But when you look at the overhead costs, there isn't much difference. Both restaurants staff a similar number of people and rely on similar ingredients. Chipotle may offer a burrito, a bowl, a quesadilla, and a salad, but it's all more or less the same ingredients: beans, corn, salsa, cheese, and basic proteins. The limited menu enables both fast-food and fast-casual restaurants to be efficient, keep costs down, and avoid losses from food waste and labor. And since fast-casual spots appear to be the nicer restaurants — with gourmet ingredients like brioche buns, healthy-sounding options, and claims of sustainable sourcing — they can charge more. If price and speed aren't priorities, many people would prefer to grab lunch at a Chipotle than at a Taco Bell.

The model also has an edge over sit-down restaurants, which have struggled in recent years. "Casual dining proper is not doing so well," Alex M. Susskind, a professor of food and beverage management at Cornell University, says. "Fast casual has provided consumers with a better meal experience that's equal to, or in some instances better than, a casual-dining restaurant, with less of a time and financial commitment."

The food is just as good, but the service is much faster. He says that's helped make the model a better investment than a place like Applebee's. Thanks in part to those higher profit margins, one restaurant analyst said it takes 18 months for a Chipotle to pay back buildout costs, compared to five years for a Cheesecake Factory.

"PE is investing money in the fast-casual market because the economics of a fast-casual concept is much better than any other type of restaurant concept," says Chris Macksey, the CEO of Prix Fixe Accounting, which specializes in hospitality. "Profit margins are anywhere from 10% to 15% as opposed to a full-service restaurant, which is 5% to 8%. Fast casual is just a far more scalable concept."

Scalability is really the brass ring. Investors in fast-casuals aren't buying restaurants; they're buying the potential growth of restaurant brands. Susskind says the boom reminds him of the late 1990s when casual-dining brands like Applebee's, TGI Fridays, and Olive Garden were taking off. He sees the recent shutdown of some of those chains — such as TGI Fridays, Red Lobster, and Smokey Bones — as a market correction for their overexpansion.

"That's what's making the investments in these businesses attractive. Because a lot of the weaker players have been weeded out," Susskind says about fast-casual restaurants. The frenzy has also been encouraged by the successful IPOs of companies like Sweetgreen in 2021 and Cava in 2023. Seeing Cava's stock grow by nearly 250% since its IPO has left investors searching for similar success.

While Sweetgreens and Dave's Hot Chickens are popping up across the country, independent restaurateurs are often left scrambling — not even for a piece of the pie, but for the crumbs.

Tracy Goh is the chef and owner of Damaran Sara, a two-year-old Malaysian restaurant in San Francisco, home of some of the most expensive commercial real estate in America. She's experienced landlords' preferences for fast-casual chains over small businesses like hers. "Especially for me, because it's my first restaurant. I don't have data to convince them that I can stay on a lease as long as they are likely to," Goh says. "They have a preference for the franchises or the big names."

A landlord's job is to generate money from their property. Their business isn't about enriching their community; it's about finding the most reliable tenants who can pay the most rent. In the restaurant real-estate space, that often means fast-food and fast-casual brands backed by major investment firms.

"If you're Chipotle or Shake Shack, you may decide to take a lease above market. You can afford it because you're privately funded," says Talia Berman, a partner at the hospitality advisory firm Friend of Chef and an expert in New York's restaurant real-estate market. "You beat out the competition because you don't care how much money you make in that space because it wasn't meant to be profitable based on the unit economics. It's part of a larger strategy."

That strategy is all about growth, she says. The primary goal of investment-backed restaurants is to expand quickly. "They're typically barreling toward an exit. So they're looking to get purchased by Nabisco or Darden or Levy or one of these huge restaurant conglomerates. And they need to show distribution — that they're operating in many states and that they have high top line," Berman says, referring to high sales volume.

A location that can gross $2 or $3 million in a year can demonstrate to a potential buyer that the eatery is successful — even if a high rent lowers the average unit profit margin. "They're thinking short term. It's a private equity mentality," says Berman.

Investment-backed restaurants also have a timing advantage over smaller shops. When a developer begins work on a new building that might lease space to a restaurant — a strip mall, food hall, or multipurpose apartment complex for instance — it's usually working on a multiyear timeline. Moshe Batalion, the vice president of national leasing for RioCan, one of Canada's largest real-estate-investment trusts, told me the firm starts thinking about who to lease to before it even breaks ground on a new property. Leases might be signed years before the space is even ready for move-in. Independent restaurateurs typically can't plan for a restaurant that won't open for two to three years.

"For independent operators, the real disadvantage is access of capital," Susskind says. "If they have access to a decent level of capital, they can grow, open more units." For chains, that's easy to do. But, he adds, "if I'm an independent, I don't know where I'm going to get $500,000 to ink a deal and build a restaurant."

When small-time restaurants get left out of the real-estate market, diners are left with a food scene that increasingly looks and tastes the same.

Thomas Crosby, the CEO of Pal's Sudden Service, a Tennessee-based chain of 31 burger shops, is all too familiar with the downsides of private equity. It's why he has eschewed outside investment. Millions of private-equity dollars might help triple the number of Pal's locations in five years — but could the chain continue to train and retest staff to remember that the perfect french fry is 3.7 inches long?

"As soon as you start taking investments or go public, you confuse your mission," Crosby says. "It becomes, what metrics can I do to wow stockholders instead of wow customers? And I think that's how so many companies get sideways. It's kind of like cars: You drive down the interstate, and you cannot hardly tell one brand from another. It becomes so homogenous." He adds: "That's what happens in the restaurant industry."

Chasing the success of another restaurant chain means everyone just tries to copy everyone else. "To please the stockholders or investors, they've got to be all things to all people," he says. By maintaining control over his operations, Crosby says, "We don't owe people money. We don't lease land. We have zero debt."

Since the early 2000s, private-equity firms started taking on a bigger role in the companies they'd invested in; these firms didn't just expect returns down the line, they began telling companies how to achieve those goals. This was good for innovation and safety, but bad for job creation and wages, with "sizable reductions in earnings per worker in the first two years post buyout," professors from Harvard and the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business wrote in a 2014 research paper.

In the long run, private equity often leaves companies worse off. In 2019, researchers found that public companies that are bought out by private-equity firms are 10 times as likely to go bankrupt as those that aren't — a finding that complicates the argument that companies like Toys "R" Us closed simply because of market forces. Similar to the casual-dining boom before it, Susskind, the Cornell professor, believes that the investment boom in the fast-casual sector will eventually lead to a bust.

Already, the graveyard of private-equity-backed restaurants is growing. BurgerFi, which has 93 locations and 51 pizza subsidiaries, primarily in Florida, received $80 million in investments just a few years ago. But despite last year's plan to update the chain's stores, menus, and technology, the investment has largely transformed into debt. The company defaulted on $51 million in credit obligations this year, and in September, it filed for bankruptcy.

Between 2015 and 2019, Mod Pizza received a total of $334 million in private-equity investments, which enabled the brand to grow to 512 locations across Western states, with over 12,000 employees. In 2019, the firm boasted of being "the fastest-growing restaurant chain in the United States for the past four years," with a plan to hit 1,000 locations in five years. The rapid expansion outpaced realistic sales growth, and earlier this year, the company closed over 40 locations.

Similarly, Rubio's Fresh Mexican Grill, founded in 1983 in California, was acquired by Mill Road Capital in 2010 for $91 million. The new ownership updated the name (to Rubio's Coastal Grill), the interior design, and the menu. Renovations at each location cost about $200,000. The chain ended up declaring bankruptcy twice: once in 2020 and again earlier this year. Though the company attributed the first filing to pandemic lockdowns, it was already struggling to maintain its growth and stay in the green prior to 2020. When it closed more restaurants earlier this year, some employees found they were unable to cash their final paychecks.

Even some of the most visible success stories of investment-based growth haven't borne fruit. Sweetgreen, "the Starbucks of salad" that was heavily backed by venture capital before its IPO, grew from one location in 2007 to 227 this year, with plans to open another 30 a year — though the company still hasn't seen a profitable year. The chain lost over $26 million last year.

At some point, the market taps out and there isn't room for more growth. Americans are already spending 42% more money on dining out than they are on groceries.

Berman says that the high volatility creates opportunities. For one, when a cash-rich restaurant bails on a retail location, it becomes available as a turnkey space, complete with HVAC, grease traps, and floor drains. Berman's company recently made a deal for a popular food brand to build out a research kitchen. It's designed to be an experiment, but they signed a 10-year lease. "Believe me, this place is not going to be around in three years, I promise you," she says. That leaves the door open for other entrepreneurs to take over.

In other words, don't get too attached to the Sweetgreen down the street. It may take longer than six months for private-equity-backed restaurants to go under, but there's a good chance your new fave won't be around in a few years.

Corey Mintz is a food reporter focusing on the intersection between food, economics, and labor. He is also the author of "The Next Supper: The End Of Restaurants As We Knew Them, And What Comes After."

• Science-washing is when a company markets itself as science-backed without proper research.
• Some companies attach doctors to a product to give it credibility or cherry-pick research.
• A nutritionist who works in the industry explained how to notice these tricks.

A nutritionist who works in the food industry broke down the marketing tricks companies use to make them seem more grounded in science than they are.

The global wellness industry is now estimated at $6.3 trillion, giving companies lots of incentives to draw in consumers even if the science behind their products isn't solid — a process called science-washing.

Emily Prpa, a nutrition lecturer at King's College London who also works in the food industry, described them in a call with Business Insider.

Trick 1: Skipping proper research

Prpa said the first thing you should do when deciding if a product is worth buying is check if the company is doing its own research.

Firsthand research is expensive, and companies often cobble together existing studies to back up their products.

For example, they could cite the benefits of individual ingredients without actually assessing whether the combination in their product is effective.

This is especially prevalent with greens powders, which contain lots of different vitamins, minerals, and probiotics.

"A lot of the time, I see that they have vitamins and minerals that compete for the same absorption channel, so actually you're not going to be getting the exact dose that they say you will on the packet," she said.

Companies can also cherry-pick which studies they include, she said, ignoring unfavorable research.

If a company has funded independent clinical trials to test their product, they're likely to make that clear on their website, Prpa said. "They'll often be very proud to state that because it's giving them that distance and showing that this isn't biased."

Trick 2: Flashy endorsements

Sometimes a company will attach a doctor or other professional to a product. They might bring them on as a scientific or medical advisor or publicize that they endorse the product.

This can give the consumers the impression that the company is credible, but that's not always the case, Prpa said. "Does that product really hold up to the claims on the website?"

It isn't necessarily a red flag if a doctor is the face of a product, Prpa said, but that alone does not mean a product has health benefits.

"You are not buying the medic as your private consultant, you are buying a product," she said.

Trick 3: Promises that sound too good to be true

It sounds simple: if a product is marketed as a fix for stacks of health problems, it's probably overpromising.

"I don't know a product or an app on the market that can simultaneously lower blood sugars, improve sleep, improve cognition, and focus," Prpa said. "If it is sounding too good, it probably is."