Read Your Labels, Beware Of Fruit Flavored Snacks For Children Or Any Human

[suzanne sanders]

It still amazes me to this day how tricky big food company's are.  Recently I saw a post from someone advertising Ocean Spray fruit flavored snacks for kids.  At first I was impressed, it is not something I would eat or let my family eat because I am a purist.  But, it looked like a better option for people who are on their way to eating healthy.    They advertised it has no food coloring and it was flavored with real fruit juice.  Sounds good so far.  But... 

I was suspicious.  What BIG Food Corporation really cares about what we eat?  Especially one that big, Ocean Spray.    They just care about their $.

I went on a search for the ingredients.  First I checked their web-site.  This is what I could find on their web-site:

Fruit Flavored Snacks Assorted Fruit

Bursting with assorted fruit flavor, these fruit flavored snacks will sure to delight everyone in the house. Made with real fruit juice, natural flavors and colors and daily dose of vitamin C. 

I could not find the ingredients, but this is what I found in very small print:

These Fruit Flavored Snacks are made with apple, pear, and cranberry juice concentrate.  See package for a list of complete ingredients.  They are not intended to replace fruit in the diet.  Colors from natural sources.

They repeated what they said for the first sentence and the last.  The middle sentence is this 

See package for a list of complete ingredients.  

You have to go to the store to read the ingredients?  First clue something is wrong.    They can put all this information up on a web-site but they can't put up the ingredients.  

My next search was looking for the ingredients on google.  I could not find the ingredients, I got through 4 pages on google and I went through different blogs.  They were all put up by women promoting these snacks.  All of them must have copied and pasted it from ocean sprays web-site.  I could not find one that actually had the full  ingredients.  

I did find one that said this first then the rest was from Ocean Spray's web-site

Then there are fruit snacks.  If you haven’t read the labels, you might be surprised to see that the first two ingredients are corn syrup and sugar – which means that a lot of fruit snacks are pretty much like candy with a boost of Vitamin C.  Not as healthy as I’d like.  That’s why I was excited to see that Ocean Spray has come out with their own fruit snacks, with the very first ingredient being actual fruit juice:

She goes on to tell you that Ocean Spray snacks are better because the first two ingredients are not corn syrup.  

Because I could not find the actual ingredients on the net I went to the store.  The first three ingredients are: 

First Ingredient is fruit juice.  This is good. 

Second ingredient is CORN SYRUP 

Third ingredient is  Modiefied CORN STARCH

The list is not good.   This product is not any better.  Because the corn syrup is the second ingredient.   THIS IS NOT ANY BETTER AT ALL!  There should not be any!

These fruit flavored snacks also have MINERAL OIL.

 Here is the MATERIAL DATA SAFETY SHEET on mineral oil. 

http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927364

I pulled one sentence from the toxicological Information

It has laxative properties and may cause gastrointestinal tract discomfort, abdominal cramps, vomiting and diarrhea. 

Here is the rest:

Special Remarks on other Toxic Effects on Humans:
Potential Health Effects: Skin: This product is not expected to cause any skin irritation upon direct single or repeated and
prolonged contact. However, similar chemical compositon products applied to the skin of lab animals resulted in minimal
to slight dermal irritation. Eyes: May cause mild (minimal) eye irritation. Inhalation: May cause respiratory tract irritation
with coughing and shortness of breath. This product has a low vapor pressure and is not expected to present an inhalation
hazard at ambient conditions. Caution should be taken to prevent aerosolization or misting. If aspiration occurs, it may
lead to chemical pneumonitis which is characterized by pulmonary edema and hemorrhage and may be fatal. Signs of lung
involvement include increased respiratory rate, increased heart rate, and bluish discoloration of the skin. Coughing, choking
and gagging are often noted at the time of aspiration Ingestion: Ingestion is relatively non-toxic unless aspiration occurs. It
has laxative properties and may cause gastrointestinal tract discomfort, abdominal cramps, vomiting and diarrhea. Exposure
to a large single dose, or repeated small doses by inhalation, aspiration or ingestion leading to aspiration can lead to lipid
pneumonia or lipid granuloma. These are low-grade, chronic localized tissue reactions which are not fatal.

It would be best for  you and your family not to eat any food that has items in it that are listed in the Science Lab's Material Data Safety Sheet 

Another concern of mine is this product is not organic.  It is full of corn products.  Which means the corn is GMO.  These fruit flavored snacks are bio-tech food.  GMO corn is not a food product.  It is regested in the US Patent office and listed as a pesticide.  

There is also a GMO ALERT;  There are some very recent studies linking GMO's to a lot of human health problems one being  the possible connection to Autism, and then there is the increase in IBS and cancer 

It is time for us humans not to trust our food sources.  It is time for us to wake up and read labels.  If you are not sure what the words are on the label just don't buy it.  

More information on GMO Foods (Remember they really are not food it just looks like food)

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_13123.cfm

A documentary to watch: 

http://responsibletechnology.org/fraud/The-World-According-to-Monsa...

This is self dense, protect yourself, your family and the environment. 

[Victoria Pich]

Thanks for doing all this research! I don't buy those snacks, they look and smell like candy. The after school care offers them as healthy snacks, ugh. On those occasions when Johanna gets those, which are rare, she gets no dessert. This is the main reason she doesn't go very often to after school club anymore. Kids eat what is there, especially if it is candy. The standard has gotten so low it is appalling. It's also quite a battle to get little kids to eat healthy food when all the other kids are eating the candy stuff. Another reason to homeschool! To keep her from getting poisoned! I say that only slightly tongue in cheek. Only slightly.