The blueberries found in blueberry bagels, cereals, breads and muffins are REAL blueberries right? Wrong! Award-winning investigative journalist Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, exposes the deceptive chemical ingredients and dishonest marketing of "blueberry" products from big-name food and cereal companies. The blueberries, it turns out, are made from artificial colors, hydrogenated oils and liquid sugars. See more episodes at www.FoodInvestigations.com
Blueberries have long beentouted as a superfood, high in antioxidants,vitamin C, and manganese. And unlike other superfoods like acaiberries, bee pollen, and wakame seaweed, blueberries are accessibleand attractive, so they're an easy sell to anyone skeptical ofhealth food.
So this reputation could be why blueberries are in so manypackaged foods, from muffin mixes to salad dressings. They appearto add nutrition and deliciousness that might otherwise be lacking.Nevermind that actual, fresh blueberries are only in season about 2to 3 months out of the year -- the blueberry harvest goes on allyear at the grocery store.
But have you actually read the labels on those supposedlyblueberry-filled products?
Some of them, like Target Blueberry Bagels and General MillsTotal Pomegranate Blueberry Cereal, might be fooling consumers intothinking the food has something it doesn't. While manufacturers state they're still within the U.S.'sadmittedly loose labeling laws, many of those blueberry-promotingproducts are made without genuine blueberries.
The Consumer Wellness Centerrecently produced a Food Investigations videothat looked at the actual blueberry content of several widelyavailable packaged foods. This expose shows how Kellogs, GeneralMills, Betty Crocker, and other brands advertise plump, wholeblueberries in their cereals and mixes, but deliever dextrose, cornflour, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, sugar, citric acid,artificial flavor, and food colorings Blue #1 and Red #40instead.