Today I was watching a video Linda suggested and in it, they noted that there are things such as “fake blueberries”. Like seriously, wtf? Why would anyone fake a blueberry? The example they used was Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal. When I think of Total cereals, I think of something super healthy. I never ate Total cereals but strolling down the cereal aisle, they are always with the healthy cereal. But apparently this cereal (which appears to no longer be available) has NO BLUEBERRIES IN IT! You can read the ingredients list on the Amazon product page. This is why I keep saying that the most important thing Linda has taught me is to read product labels! Apparently the “blueberries” are bits of sugar wrapped in artificial colors.
Stop and think about this for a minute – do you think anyone knows that when a product package says “xyz with blueberries” that it really means “xyz with fake blueberries made up of crap” ? Of course not. Where is the FDA to help us? I know that I am totally new to eating healthy but this stuff scares me.
And Total isn’t alone – look at the ingredients for Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats Blueberry Muffin cereal: “Whole grain wheat, sugar, contains 2% or less of milled corn, brown rice syrup, corn syrup, natural and artificial flavor, modified corn starch, gelatin, soybean oil, glycerin, sorbitol, blue 2 lake, red 40 lake, red 40, BHT for freshness.” NOT ONE BLUEBERRY. And kids eat this and parents think they are giving their kids something healthy when they are just giving them sugar.
What I realize now is that they beef up the vitamins so it looks totally healthy – I bet most people (including me) just look at the nutritional info and not the ingredients because we assume there are blueberries when the product package says so!
Here is an excellent video which takes a look at the fake blueberry scam in more detail.
But it’s not just cereal. The investigation found lots of other foods that say they contain blueberries when they don’t – just a bunch of fake crap to look like blueberries.
This makes me wonder…what other fruits and vegetables are faked for profit?
Here are the ingredients in the Total cereal:
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Crazy, right?!