Those Blueberries in Your Cereal, Muffins and Baking Mixes? All Fake.

What do blueberries have in common with sugar, corn cereal, modified food starch, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, artificial flavor, cellulose gum, salt and and Blue #1, Blue #2, Red #40 and Green #3? Nothing! But that doesn't stop food companies from marketing 100% manufactured "blueberry crunchlets" or "blueberry bits" as the real deal. Blueberry Muffin Mini-Wheat cereal? No blueberries. Total Pomegranate and Blueberry cereal? No pomegranates, no blueberries. Blueberry Pop Tarts? More corn syrup than berries.

This type of advertising rides the biomimic-marketing wave, using nature and the poorly-documented claims of "superfoods" to cast a healthy aura on junk. It allows us to feel virtuous, pure and wholesome while we eat foods largely derived from sugar, cheap grains, and chemical additives. Want to avoid these psuedo-berries? Just read the ingredients list or, better yet, buy a carton of fresh berries.

Via Food Investigations.