Posted on 01/28/2011 4:11:39 PM PST by Daffynition
Fake blueberries are usually plastic and can be found with other fake fruits in decorative arrangements or on bizarre hats.
Now, apparently, they can be found in food. A range of fake blueberries are in a number of retail food items that contain labels or photos suggesting real blueberries were used in the products, according to an investigation.
Sigh.
As if it's not hard enough to include fruits in your diet. Now you have to watch for fraudulent food.
The nonprofit Consumer Wellness Center reported Thursday that its investigation found "blueberries" that were nothing more than a concoction of sugar, corn syrup, starch, hydrogenated oil, artificial flavors and -- of course -- artificial food dye blue No. 2 and red No. 40. The offenders are well-known manufacturers such as Kellogg's, Betty Crocker and General Mills, and the fakes were found in bagels, cereals, breads and muffins. Some products contain real blueberries mixed with fakes. For example, the blueberry bagels sold at Target contain some real berries but the "blueberry bits" listed in the ingredients aren't real blueberries, according to Mike Adams, the author of the report.
Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats Blueberry Muffin variety has no blueberries but does have "blueberry flavored crunchies" made from the sugar-and-dye concoction mentioned above.
My personal favorite fraud is Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal, from General Mills, which contains no blueberries and no pomegranates.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
But do all of these foods come with real and genuine Chinese melamine?
Those hard crunchy blue things in my Colossal Berry Crunch aren’t REAL?
OH, The Huge Manatee!!!!
Hey, if we can have a fake president they can have fake blueberries.
We have access to so many blueberries here that we keep a couple of bags in the freezer. They work great in muffins or anything else your make if you treat them like another dry ingredient. They thaw quickly when you bake ‘em.
Same goes for raspberries here...we get gallons of them off of our canes every summer.
Getting sand outta the crack is a beeitch....
Alaska pollack?
I just used up the last of my Maine blues in muffins yesterday. I’ll have a sadness til late next summer ‘til we pick more.
The processing of imitation crabmeat begins with the skinning and boning of the fish. Then the meat is minced and rinsed, and the water is leached out. This creates a thick paste called surimi. The word means "minced fish" in Japanese, and the essential techniques for making it were developed in Japan over 800 years ago. Surimi is commonly used in Japan to make a type of fish ball or cake called kamaboko. In 1975, a method for processing imitation crabmeat from surimi was invented in Japan, and in 1983, American companies started production. Many ingredients are added to the surimi to give it a stable form, appealing texture, and crab-like flavor. Sugar, sorbitol, wheat or tapioca starch, egg whites, and vegetable or soybean oil can all help improve the form of the surimi. Natural and artificial crab flavorings are added, and some of these flavorings are made from real crab or from boiled shells. Carmine, caramel, paprika, and annatto extract are often used to make the crab's red, orange, or pink coloring. Imitation crab is cooked, which helps set the surimi and give it the final texture and appearance. Nutritionally speaking, surimi is not that different from real crab, although it is lower in cholesterol.
and tastes like sweetened, finely pulverized, imitation white fish flesh, that has been shaped and cured to resemble snow crab legs.
Hmm... I wonder if the fruit in my Kellogg's Fruit Harvest cereal is the real thing or the imitation kind. Must read ingredients.
To avoid fraudulent blueberries posing as real berries, look on ingredient lists for red No. 40, blue No. 2 or any artificial colors, Adams says.
My personal favorite fraud is Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal, from General Mills, which contains no blueberries and no pomegranates.
No plastic bits here, the ingredients include “blueberries canned in light syrup.”
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