Fake Blueberries In Cereals, Baked Goods

1-24-2011 @5:47PM David said... One breakfast product that definitely does use real blueberries is Vitalicious's BlueBran VitaTops. They are 100 calorie, all natural muffin tops - no food dyes!
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1-25-2011 @7:25AM Bill C said... I am finding it hard to believe that people are just discovering this. Isn't it obvious when you open that can of Blueberries in muffin mix that they aren't real? It is to me.
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1-25-2011 @11:51AM Jackie Butler said... As NYCubsfan pointed out, we CAN always add the blueberries ourselves! Like strawberries, blueberries tend to spoil pretty quickly no matter how you try to preserve them so just buy small amounts, rinse them, toss them into your cereal, oatmeal or muffin mixies and enjoy! Also, Mc Donalds has a new oatmeal loaded with fruit-just watch the commercial, taking note of the fruit they add and do it yourself at home; it's fresher and cheaper since you get more when you make it in bulk in your own cozy kitchen!
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1-25-2011 @12:10PM jaba said... This is just outright fraud!
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1-25-2011 @12:10PM Adam said... Keep in mind that nowhere on the front of the box does it say real blueberries. To me, calling a cereal Blueberry Muffin means it should taste like a blueberry muffin, and not necessarily have real blueberries in it.
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1-25-2011 @12:14PM Injured Cop said... I agree with most of you who have left comments. Yes, it's pretty OBVIOUS to me too that the little blue/purple pellets that you often find in muffin mixes, etc are NOT real blueberries, and yes, if I want to have REAL blueberries in my cereal or pancakes it is NOT too difficult to add them in myself. At least then I KNOW EXACTLY what I am putting into my body. Even right down to the individual berries I hand pick out of the fresh blueberry's container they came in from the store.

Now, as to the writer of this story, "Jessie Cacciola". She is trying to tell us just how deceiving the manufacturers' are, and she even goes as far as putting a picture of the FRONT of Kellogg's 'Blueberry Muffin Mini Wheats' Cereal box as the picture she chose to represent her story. Then she begins to LIBEL (sic?) Kellogg's by saying they are 'touting fresh blueberries on the front of their cereal box', but yet they do not have any 'fresh blueberries in it', but instead only have something called 'Blueberry flavored crunchlets'. She then goes on to state how they are, in so many words, committing fraud against us as consumers. I my own opinion, I think she will be lucky if Kellogg's doen't end up suing her for libel because in all actuallity (sic?) she is the one who appears to actually be the one committing a 'fraud' with her article/story.

The reasons that I say this is because at this very moment we happen to have 2 boxes of this exact same cereal in our household. One is open & one is in the food pantry. I looked at each one, plus I looked at the picture from her article (I enlarged it), and NOWHERE on any of the 3 seperate cereal box front's did I see where she claims that they "Tout that it's made with Fresh Blueberries'.
The closest it ever comes to even trying to hint at anything even close to something like that would be where they say the cereal is both naturally & artificially flavored (Even then, it would be quite a stretch to think that's what Kellogg's was referring to). The 'naturally flavored' part is obviously speaking about the wheat portion of the cereal, and the 'artificially flavored' part is obviously speaking about the Blueberry FLAVORED portion of the cereal. MOST PEOPLE are aware of this fact, it is only people such as the author who might not have fully and carefully read & comprehended what it was that they had read on the box's front who might THINK that all of that must mean that Kellogg's is implying that it has fresh blueberries in it somehow.
In the end, the bottom line here in my own opinion is that 'Jessie's' editors, and fact checkers should have paid much closer attention to the article before posting it, or allowing it to be posted!
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1-25-2011 @12:59PM Mike said... Hey, play fair. There's an attempt at deception going on here, but it's not Kellog's that doing it, it's Jessie Cacciola. Where on the box cover does it "tout" fresh blueberries as you claim? Nowhere! Nothing in either the text or the picture suggests the presence of real blueberries, let alone fresh ones. Any sensible person knows there could not be fresh berries, since they would rot very quickly if there were put in the cereal box. The description of this particular variety of frosted mini-wheats as "blueberry muffin" suggests the presence of some sort of sugar and carbohydrate mixture, and "blueberry flavored crunchlets" fills that bill. Smaller but still readily visible lettering tells the potential buyer that both natural and artificial flavoring is present in the product. If you want real blueberries in your cereal, buy some blueberries and mix them in. If you want something blueberry flavored, relatively inexpensive and convenient, then Blueberry Muffin Frosted Mini-Wheats may be just what you're looking for. Quit the libel and save your ire for real instances of deceptive packaging.
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1-25-2011 @1:01PM Mike said... Of course they're real. What do canned bluberries in a muffin mix have to do with blueberry flavoring in a cereal?
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1-25-2011 @1:04PM Mike said... Get a brain, jaba.
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1-25-2011 @1:42PM cathy said... It is not fraud if an ignorant consumer assumes that by using the word "blueberry" it in fact, means they are real. We can't assume anything anymore. We have fake food at every turn and just have to make sure that we read every package label, especially the fine print. http://newsy1.wordpress.com
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