Fake Blueberries in Products

[Durgan]

http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=7EC06D27B ... 8483025962

LA Times:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/2 ... 14567.html

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.

[merlin]

Considering how time consuming blueberries are to grow, did anybody really expect a blueberry packed bagel flogged on the underground with a coffee to actually contain blueberries? It's rather like expecting all Beaujolais to be genuine, now come on

[Durgan]

I sure expect the printed information on a package to be a true bill. But I purchase as little commercial food as possible, so it doesn't affect me too much. Blueberries are grown in my area and there are many farms. Many berries are picked by machine today plus the slaves allowed in the country for agricultural work from the Caribbean. Canadian youth are so fat and well fed that they shun physical labour.

[merlin]

I know what you mean. I live in Bulgaria and loads of people to to England each year to pick strawberries. I mean, can you imagine the cost the the plane fare food housing etc etc and they still make a profit. They get minimum wage and do have to pay towards food and housing. How many people live with mum and dad can't get of the xbox long enough to get a summer job even. It's just lining the whole nation up for health problems. I saw on the news a few months ago that there are more people dying from having too much food than not enough now, it is a very sad situation

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Durgan - this is outragous. I'm amazed that they can get away with it. How many people, after all, read the ingrediants carefully enough to realise that there are just too many blue bits to be real? Food adulteration is alive & well; I don't know what food labelling regs are like your side, but here if the EU try and tighten things up the "food" industry squeal like stuck pigs.

[Durgan]

My solution is to avoid all Commercial food as much as possible. It is still possible to implement to a greater or lesser degree. Fortunately I can and do produce much of what I ingest. Taking what is perceived as the good and attempting to avoid the bad.

I am of the view that commercial produced food is killing us. Evidenced by the world wide obesity. Not to the hysterical stage just aware. But, I be a voice in he wilderness.

[Odsox]

But, I be a voice in he wilderness.

No not exactly Durgan, although I tend to keep my head down and let the rest of the world get on with it.
The majority of what we eat is home made and mostly home grown, certainly the only commercial products we buy are ingredients, nothing ready made.
Our nearest McDonalds is 60 miles away, but even if it were next door I would never go in .. tried it once at a motorway rest stop, so there is no need to do it again.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

My solution is to avoid all Commercial food as much as possible. It is still possible to implement to a greater or lesser degree. Fortunately I can and do produce much of what I ingest. Taking what is perceived as the good and attempting to avoid the bad.

I am of the view that commercial produced food is killing us. Evidenced by the world wide obesity. Not to the hysterical stage just aware. But, I be a voice in he wilderness.

Amen to that!

[oldjerry]

[quote="merlin"]I know what you mean. I live in Bulgaria and loads of people to to England each year to pick strawberries. I mean, can you imagine the cost the the plane fare food housing etc etc and they still make a profit. They get minimum wage and do have to pay towards food and housing.


Well that's one way of looking at it.

Here in the rural English Midlands,many of us ,young and old,who for generations have made a living\subsidised a small holding working in the fields,are now unable to get casual agricultural piecework as the large agribusinesses that have developed specifically to exploit the cheap European labour REFUSE to employ any local labour.Time and again they have been prosecuted for the 'housing' you mention(on the grounds of health and safety and planning regs.)They get around the minimum wage regs by claiming the possibility of ludicrous picking rates.For yearsthe local papers have been full of stories of the pityful sums some of these migrants work for.If they do 6 months and go back with a few grand that might (given the cost of living in their own countries) go a long way,I wouldn't know,nor would I criticize them for what they do.

But this Daily Mail ''Look what lengths these people will go to to find work, British people would rather be on the dole(have they ever actually signed on?) and they'd rather play on their X boxes than do the work thats out there''.

.....Give me a break......

[Durgan]

We get fresh blueberries from SA during the winter months. One had to check the bottom of the package for mold. Recently I checked and they appeared to be excellent. When I got them home, I discovered that they were stale, if one can imagine such a thing. Apparently the commercial suppliers have an additive that prevents mold, and the berries have a beautiful appearance. Long shelf life but not pleasant to eat.

[oldjerry]

Back on topic,Durgan d'you think these may have been irradiated? Common practice with some UK sold soft fruit,Extends the shelf life,but they then ,at the end of their shelf life,go bad very quickly.They also seem to choose ,especially with strawberries,the most tasteless varieties,maybe because these have the highest water content.

[Durgan]

Back on topic,Durgan d'you think these may have been irradiated? Common practice with some UK sold soft fruit,Extends the shelf life,but they then ,at the end of their shelf life,go bad very quickly.They also seem to choose ,especially with strawberries,the most tasteless varieties,maybe because these have the highest water content.

There sure isn't much information about irradiation of our food products. If irradiation is being used, it sure is a well kept secret. There is little useful information on Google. Blueberries would be an ideal product on which to practice irradiation.

We get our strawberries off season from California,and they are almost angular partially green, and have no taste whatsoever. Local there are plenty of strrawberries, mostly pick your own,for about three weeks in June.

Canadian food labelling leaves a lot to be desired from a consumer view. It takes about five minutes to determine where stuff is produced with a magnifying glass (print is small and well hidden), and even then means little, since if the product is 51% Canadian it can be labelled as Product of Canada. I think this even extends to including the container.

Shrimp is processed at an old fish plant on the Great Lakes, but no mention of where the shrimp is harvested. I have quit buying shrimp. The fish plants were originally closed, since all the Great Lake fish is mercury contaminated.

I use to like the oysters for camping food.Oysters in a can are all from China now, and I quit buying them, since the taste is lousy.

Sardines in the can are still produced in Canada or so it seems. We get no fresh fish inland in Canada.

Caveat emptor.

[merlin]

If you can’t find casual labour in the uk, you are simply are not looking, or perhaps the’ standards’ of real work and hard living don’t really appeal…. At the end of the day, if you are worried about reading the ingredients on a pack of Blueberries in January, you have really lost the plot.

[oldjerry]

If you can’t find casual labour in the uk, you are simply are not looking, or perhaps the’ standards’ of real work and hard living don’t really appeal…. At the end of the day, if you are worried about reading the ingredients on a pack of Blueberries in January, you have really lost the plot.

Yeah, OK.

[contadina]

Sadly unregulated agricultural practices have become acceptable owing to the demand for cheap foods, but a return to Grapes of Wrath farm slavery is not something to be celebrated. Myself and my siblings used to help my mum pick fruit and potatoes whenever there was farm work to be found but seasonal picking is no longer done by local people working ad hoc for themselves but by organised groups of immigrants at a cheaper rate. The introduction of gangmasters is the price we pay for cheap food.

A dairy farm close to us has a fairly high turnover of migrant workers from India, Romania, Africa etc and the farmer can't quite understand why they wouldn't be happy to work 15 hours a day, sleeping with the cows for €200 euros a month . By Puglian standards those are quite good conditions, I know people that collect olives, fruit and tomatoes who get paid so little it rarely covers the cost of the petrol to get there (€15 per day for harvesting olives and a paltry €4 for picking cherries all day). If you really think casual farm workers should be pleased by such poor pay and conditions then I suggest you read this account of a journalist who describes his experience. I've managed to find a translated version and it's seven pages long, but well worth a read. http://espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio ... ia/1373950