Fun Pops: Another Fruit Fraud
No, people, this is NOT a fun at all. I thought Kool-Aid was the only worst fake fruit beverage on the market. Well, if I was the manufacturer of the Fun Pops I couldn’t sleep at nights bothering by the thoughts of what adverse health effects my beverage might produce on American public, especially on children, the Future of my Country. But Alamance Foods Inc., seems to be proud to produce their chemically polluted “made in USA” beverage. Now, take a sit and look at the risk “dyegram;” it’s all red:
DyeDiet Doesn’t Buy It!
Fun Pops: Risk, Nutrition and Dye Content
On the label you read: “Fruit Flavored Freezable Beverage.” And the funny part says: “May or may not contain Grape, Orange, Blue Punch, Pina Colada, Banana, Lemon-Lime, Peach, Watermelon, Cherry, Mango, Green Apple and Strawberry.” Didn’t they forget listing something? I can help: Fun Pops may not contain a thousand and one other fruits and berries from all over the world! Obviously, those guys at Alamance Foods treat their fellow Americans like complete idiots. Do you see any fruits among the ingredients? No? Neither do I.
So WHAT do those Fun Pops really worth? Not much… It is just water sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup (video) contaminated with artificial flavors and colors.
- Water
- HFCS (read this recent article Cancer Cells Slurp Fructose , US study finds)
- Artificial flavors. For instance, you get methyl anthranilate for grapes and benzaldehyde for cherries…
- Artificial colors (read CSPI document Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks).
This is another “fruit fraud” to be returned back to the manufacturer! Better consider 3 gallons of filtered water for $1.10 bringing no harm to you and your kids. If you still want to gamble with your health, drink one of those pops and you will take unacceptably high foreign additive risk of DDFI = 57/10 = 5.7 and you will get miserably low nutritional value of DDNF = 10/64 ~ 0.16.
Shame on you, Alamance Foods: Along with Kool-Aid you contribute into destroying the Future of this Country! See: Food marketing to children and youth overview.
While the amount of the artificial colorants is rather low (90 mg total) why to add them when safer natural alternatives are available? Remember, 20-30 mg may trigger ADHD reaction in sensitive children.
Green 3. According to the Wikipedia, “This substance has been found to have tumorigenic effects in experimental animals, as well as mutagenic effects in both experimental animals and humans. It furthermore risks irritation of eyes, skin, digestive tract, and respiratory tract in its undiluted form.” See Green 3 MSDS (Section 11). For some reason we were unable to detect Green 3 in this particular batch of the Fun Pops but expect to find it in the other one. However its closest relative, Blue 1, was detected as listed in the ingredients.
Blue 1. As you can see from the Blue 1 MSDS (Section 11) this aniline-derived dye is five times more toxic for rats than Red 40 with LD50 ~ 2 g/Kg. Toxicological studies in animals revealed the following health complications were posed by Blue 1:
- Neoplastic tumor
- Genotoxicity (means genetic mutations, cancer)
- Mutagenic effects (may cause cancer).
Taking into account that there are over 3000 food additives circulating in the US foods and beverages, it is nearly impossible to establish a solid link between a food additive and a health condition except extreme cases when an autopsy clearly points to the issue (read Blue Colon at Autopsy).
So what to recommend? Consider Arizona Fruit Punch or Xingtea; and, doubt, mineral water you can buy at your local Walmart for $1.50 is much safer and healthier choice.
DyeDiet Recommended
S. PELLEGRINO Sparkling Natural Mineral Water
No HFCS, no artificial colors, no calories… It is up to us to resist and stop the “fruit fraud”! I hope this review helps you to make the right choice.
Category: Food Dyes Exposure, Soft drinks
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you need to chill out…people know that these are just a fun treat, just like everybody knows that you don’t go to a hamburger place if you’re craving chicken..its NO surprise that these contain sugars and dyes…seriously..DUH!!!! nobody cares, freezer pops are awesome….loosen up a bit there tight terry
Thanks for your comment. For your information, if you are curious to know what REAL drinks and candies look like, stop by at a Whole Foods Market or a Trader Joe’s store. You will see, there ARE NON-toxic alternatives to the 90% crap in the US drink and candy market. My business is to INFORM the public. If you are informed and still WANT to eat azo-dyes and carcinogens – this is fine with me.
When you use words like “crap” or when you mistake the meaning of the work “toxic”, when you mistakenly use phrases like “fruit fraud” you kind of destroy your credibility an informer. It’s certainly not crap, but if you mean one of the derived meaning of the word, I guess you can have that opinion… it’s just not too professional. The stuff is certainly not toxic unless you mean it’s similar to water in that enough consumption of water will kill you. Again… not too objective. So… where’s the fraud? The call it fruit flavors, and tell you exactly what’s in it. I agree with tiderwave… Lighten up!
Thank you for your comment. As a professional chemist, I don’t use those words at work space. But as anyone else I can be quite emotional when I see too much unwelcome chemistry in our food supply. Unfortunately, the majority of customers doesn’t read the ingredient lists but makes the decision based on what they see on the front of labels. And on the fronts are beautiful oranges, peaches, lemons, etc. and in the consumer’s blood goes all the ugliness of the chemical fake. This is what I call “fruit fraud.”
I appreciate your passsion but I think you underestimate the intelligence of consumers. Do you really believe that the average consumer thinks they are consuming the equivalent of a mango when they chomp into a yummy mango ice pop? Anything consumed in massive quantities will eventually have a negative effect. I suggest as a scientist and an informer you might want to use more imperical data to make your case, as opposed to subjective name calling. It kind of sounds like you got fired from Alamance Foods. Your blog is subjective and kind of spiteful. I suggest you cool out a little and be more scientific in your assesments.
By the way… here’s a little something about the mineral water you recommend.
In 2007, the German consumer television programme, Markt, reported that San Pellegrino contains uranium. Nestlé was informed about this and responded that uranium was common in both bottled and tap water, but that the level in their product was below the threshold of harmful levels noted by various governments and food health organizations. They added that San Pellegrino is not suitable for infants under 12 weeks of age.[4][5]
Sorry…… one more thing.
http://www.austriantimes.at/index.php?id=13400
Health watchdogs have warned that household name mineral waters on sale in British supermarkets are dangerous for young children because they contain high doses of uranium.
“Dangerous” levels of uranium – which can damage a developing child’s kidney – were found in one in eight of bottled waters says Germany’s Foodwatch group.
A dose of just two micrograms of uranium per litre of water can be dangerous to a young child, states the watchdog – five times lower than previous scientific opinion.
“Every eighth mineral water contains too much uranium and is therefore not safe for infants and young children,” said Foodwatch director Thilo Bode in a report in Welt newspaper.
Now the organisation is pressing German health authorities to limit uranium levels by law to less than two micrograms per litre.
The Foodwatch study listed household names like San Pellegrino, and Perrier as containing “too high” doses of uranium.
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Let me guess….your a pop drinker? Or maybe better yet a bottled water drinker? Maybe we should all go to the market and get fresh fruit to make our own juices? Have you been to the markets and bought what the consider to be natural fruit? I grew up on a farm and I KNOW what fresh fruit and vegtables should taste like. Now you have to give everything a vinegar bath when you bring it home to get all the wax and chemicals they coat on it to make it look pretty. And God only knows what they give them to grow. So your overeducated tirad against Fun Pops could be better spent on disecting the soda industries atrocities seeing that they’ve got their machines in all the schools. I don’t exactly see Koolaid stands and freezer pops being hocked onto our kids.
Never heard of em. So I had to check them out and I must say Fun Pops are AWESOME! I got four bags in my freezer. They are so much better than Otter Pops, must be the dye!
Fun Pops > Otter Pops!!!!!!!
Walmart was out of fun pops so I placed an order for 26 on Walmart .com!