Monday, April 10, 2017

No, Juice Is Not, "Really Close To Fruit"

If I had to rank juice companies by how blatantly their packaging tried to convince consumers that vitamin-fortified sugar water was healthful, Oasis would come out on top by a mile. So I'm not at all surprised to learn that it's Oasis' packaging that now includes the statement,
"Really Close To Fruit"
Nor was I surprised by this new product that I spotted at my local convenience store.

It's candy gussied up by Welch's to infer that it's fruit.

With pictures of grapes across the front, it reports it's "Family Farmer Owned", that it's "Grape", that it's "bursting with fruit flavour", and "made with real fruit juice".

They're 50% sugar by weight.

While I doubt there'll be parents out there who confuse these with actual grapes, I bet the majority will think they're a "better for you" product than Twizzler's Nibs. Yet if you compared the two you'd discover they're pretty much the same, with the Welch's candy actually containing 2.5% more sugar gram for gram than the Nibs.

But at least they're calling them licorice and not "fruit chews" or something of that sort.

Until juice is explicitly removed from national dietary guidelines as being a fruit equivalent we'll continue to see this sort of health-washing.

Oh, and coming down the pipes perhaps to a McDonald's near you?

Minute Maid Slushies - which apparently were debuted at a McDonald's funded children's festival.

No word yet on how much sugar these new faux-healthy Slushies are packing.

[h/t to Christine T. for sharing the "Really Close To Fruit" photo with me on Twitter]