A revealing video made by the Nonprofit Consumer Wellness Center points out a frightening consumer deception in some popular brands that sell products such as muffins, breads, and cereal. These popular brands named in the video are faking their fruit – they don’t contain blueberries, despite pictures on the front of their packaging, and in some cases claims in writing, that they do contain blueberries.
Instead, the products contain “blueberry bits”, “blue crunchlets” or out-and-out faked blueberries made from artificial colors, partially-hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup, chemically provided with a blue color. While it sounds shocking, it’s information that can be found with a little digging – into the ingredients list – where in these particular cases no blueberries are listed among the many sugars and artificial ingredients and colors.
While some products advertise fruits in their products that simply don’t exist, others admit it in fine print according to the video, but the goals for these big brands appear to be the same – convincing the consumer that they are buying blueberries to inflate prices, then making chemically colored bits more cheaply to expand profits.
What can the consumer do? Rely on trusted brands that use real blueberries – they do exist. And most importantly, read labels. Look for artificial colors, like Red # 40 and Blue #2, needed to provide that blue-like color to their sugars and petrochemicals used to fake their fruit – they usually show up at the bottom of the ingredients list.
Of course real blueberries, especially wild blueberries, are incredibly nutritious and contribute big benefits to a healthy diet. Add them yourself by buying them fresh or frozen from trusted brands to be sure you are getting the real nutrition and powerful antioxidants they provide in their natural, authentic form.
The video, The Blueberry Deception, can be seen in its entirety below. Natural News also provides a sample letter you can send to these companies to tell them to get real and drop the deception.
If a whole new way of life based on tasty veggies and fruits, bright colors, and prevention and recovery from disease sounds like something you’d like to embrace in the new year, getting to know Meg Wolff is a perfect start.
Wolff is a local author who will be appearing at Portland, Maine’s Longfellow Books on Thursday, January 20th, discussing her latest book, A Life In Balance: Delicious, Plant-Based Recipes for Optimal Health. She is a cancer survivor and devotes her time to promoting healthy foods and recipes that contribute to wellness and disease prevention. A blogplanted the seed for A Life in Balance, a vegetarian cookbook which includes a wealth of recipes from the author and other well-known authors and chefs that present macrobiotic and vegan cooking in delicious and accessible ways.
Plants That Change Your Life
Wolff’s recipes range from black bean and cornbread casserole to pasta dishes, but plants are at the heart of this Maine resident’s guidelines for eating toward health and healing. She feels strongly that a diet based on whole plant foods – that means eating primarily whole grains, beans & vegetables, no processed foods & sugar – is the path to healthy living, and credits her largely macrobiotic lifestyle to better health following two grave cancer diagnoses. Part of her message is that diet can dramatically increase your quality of life, especially for those with a life-threatening disease, and plants, rich as they are in healing compounds that fight cancer, are the conduit.
They also make for delicious, colorful dishes that are hard even for confirmed carnivores to resist. Of course, we love Wolff’s passion for wild blueberries; blues grace the cover of her new book, and she is an advocate of using them in delicious ways, including in fruit salads, cakes, and vinaigrettes. You can read about her anticancer breakfast at the Huffington Post. It features a breakfast staple – oatmeal – and it’s no surprise she suggests topping it with Maine wild blueberries (or sunflower seeds for protein).
Get a Taste of the Plant-Based Life
If you have a casual interest in going plant-based, you can start with Wolff’s blog – its spectrum of foods and science-based information about health will reel you in. You can also get your plant-based diet fix from her website if you’re interested in dipping your toe in the plant-based life: start with Squash & Carrot Ginger Soup, Gingered Chickpeas, and some painless principles for making polenta and sautéed veggies. All are so delicious and robust with hue, you’ll consider your new year’s resolution for a rainbow-colored plate all but achieved.
Meet Meg Wolff at Longfellow Books in Portland on January 20th.
Local Brand Features Sustainability as Primary Ingredient
Chef Sam Hayward is as famous for Fore Street, his downtown Portland, Maine restaurant, as he is for his commitment to local foods. Now he has succeeded in bringing a taste of both closer to kitchen tables around the state with his traditional recipe for seafood pie, featuring sustainably-caught Maine seafood – Maine shrimp, Maine scallops, Maine lobster and rock crab. This seafood pie is now available under the product line Maine Fresh, and is being are sold at Hannaford stores.
Hayward’s Maine Fresh seafood pies, available in shrimp, scallop, crab or lobster, can be found at Hannaford stores.
True to Hayward’s commitment to using as many local ingredients in his food as possible, this traditional pie recipe, a result of years of careful perfecting, is a wealth of the state’s local foods, including its seafood and lobster, cream, sea salt and vegetables. Hayward told the Portland Press Herald that herbs, diced vegetables, flour used for the pastry, and shiitake mushrooms used in the lobster pie will eventually be sourced locally as well.
The Maine Fresh project is a partnership between the for-profit the Cobscook Bay Company and the non-profit Cobscook Community Learning Center in Maine’s Washington Country. In a marriage of local food sustainability and support of local programs, part of the proceeds from Maine Fresh benefit the Center, which supports arts and educational programs in the county. The center represents an asset in an area of the state that provides a bounty of local food but is also challenged economically.
Hayward is known for his early leadership in Maine’s local food movement and for helping to put the state’s thriving culinary scene on the national map. As a James Beard award winner and chef at Fore Street, a restaurant that stands as a jewel in a Maine town crowned “foodiest” by Bon Appétit in 2009, he takes advantage of as many local and seasonal ingredients as possible, tapping Maine farmers, fishermen and foragers for the ingredients that make up his highly-praised dishes. He is known for making inspired use of local wild blueberries, too – in traditional crisps and pies and in dishes that are more unusual, like berry-infused goat cheese mousse.
Ah, summer. If only we could extend the colorful, fresh bounty of the season all winter long. But wait a minute – it seems we can. There are millions of pounds of wild blueberries currently being captured and quick frozen at their very peak of flavor and nutrition. We can use them at our discretion any time of year.
August is harvest season, and that means efforts to provide us with an endless summer, at least when it comes to berries, are going on right now. Thank goodness! Enjoying flavorful blues from the freezer for breakfast, desserts, entrees, and salads is one of the best ways to integrate potent nutrients into your diet, get your required daily servings of fruits and veggies, and bask in a little taste of summer gone by.
If you’ve ever wondered what goes into harvesting this antioxidant and anti-aging hero, here’s a little bit of blueberry back-story just in time for harvest season.
Barrens in Bloom
Maine averages 70 million pounds of blueberries per year.
Remember that wilds are different from cultivated berries: they are smaller, they showcase an array of color variations and flavor that ranges from sweet to tart, and their high skin-to-pulp ratio means they are super-concentrated with powerful antioxidants. Also called “low-bush blueberries,” wilds are exclusive to the regions of Maine and Eastern Canada where large stretches of barrens produce this indigenous fruit – over 60,000 acres of blueberry farmland stretch across Maine alone, providing an average 70 million pounds of berries each year. Canadian provinces including Nova Scotia, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland also boast robust wild blueberries crops. It’s here that they have naturally evolved to thrive in the challenging acidic soils and under the environmental stresses of changing temperature that the four diverse seasons provide. The result is the distinctive color, plant height, taste, and fruit size of the wild blueberry.
To take best advantage of the flourishing fruit, beginning at the end of August, farmers throughout Maine and Canada engage in a commercial harvesting process which originated back in 1874.
Talk of the Town
Many blossoms herald a promising crop.
August is the culmination of a two-year growing cycle; growers rotate their crop by harvesting half of their acreage each year. For local growers, the process incorporates a unique dedication to agricultural practices that ensure healthy crops for generations to come. But the crop’s success is dependent on many factors both in and out of a blueberry farmer’s control. High yield depends on moisture, winter snow coverage, a lack of damaging frosts, and bee pollination. Farmers hope for high numbers of fruit per plant to indicate a productive season – blossoms average five or six per bud but can top 15 if conditions are good.
During harvest season, towns that are home to large wild blueberry farms are focused on the season’s take. The crop is clearly a source of pride: discussions in local shops in areas like Machias revolve around the health and abundance of the year’s crop, and dessert in local restaurants is always blueberry pie. Fair and festival preparations are in full swing, and the towns buzz with activity as populations swell with those involved and employed with the harvest.
Tradition & Technology
While stories of migrant workers traveling to Down East Maine to engage in dawn-till-dusk labor to clear the barrens of their fruit do still paint an accurate picture, today, capturing wild blueberries at the height of taste and nutrition requires a mixture of traditional and high-tech methods.
Tradition & technology combine during the harvest.
Hand raking is a tradition that has held since the onset of commercial harvesting, but roughly half of modern operations use mechanized harvesting. While some may mourn the lost art of raking by hand, mechanizing means growers can mow the grounds, a practice that is more environmentally sound than traditional burning. It also lessens their dependence on hard-to-find hand labor. Cleaning processes in factories also use state-of-the-art computer controlled equipment, ensuring only ripe tasty blueberries end up in the carton, tub, bag or pouch, at the other end of the process.
Picked at Peak
While fresh cartons of berries are a welcome sight in late summer, in fact, 99% of the wild blueberry crop is frozen, using the individually quick freezing method (IQF) which allows for the fast preservation of taste, nutrition, and antioxidant power. IQF blueberries can remain frozen for over two years without losing their flavor or nutritional value. While the fresh-pack industry is very small, it has garnered growing interest from farmers because of the added value that comes with eliminating processing. Some farmers even freight fresh berries out-of-state to places as far flung as Texas, so buyers can enjoy the taste of the indigenous wild fruit straight from the field.
It’s the dedication of growers and their efforts during the harvest season that has made this unique fruit with its taste, nutritional attributes, and overall mystique the health icon it is today. So take some time to celebrate this delicious gift that gives all year long!
Wild Blueberries: The Pick of the Season
This season, industry reports indicate a banner year for the lauded berry. While farmers are busy in the fields, you can get a taste of the harvest, too. Many farms offer u-pick opportunities – it’s a perfect summer family activity, and even better, one that culminates in a cake, cobbler or pie.
If you can’t get out to the field yourself, don’t worry. August is the month where wild blueberries practically come to you. You’re guaranteed to find quarts at gas stations, convenience stores, farm stands and on the roadside.
James A. Joseph, Ph.D., author and respected scientist and researcher, died suddenly this month. Joseph was a valued associate and friend of the Wild Blueberry Association of North America, and he will be sorely missed. A distinguished scientist with an outstanding record of achievement, Joseph contributions have had a major impact on agricultural research. His considerable body of work earned him deep appreciation by his peers in the scientific community, and his extraordinary leadership will long be remembered.
Joseph joined the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University as the Director of the Neuroscience Laboratory in 1993. He served as a Research Physiologist for the USDA Agricultural Research Service and an affiliate member of the Tufts faculty, where he was engaged in research involving oxidative stress in brain aging. Prior to coming to Tufts, he served in various other positions in federal government at the National Institutes of Health, the Armed Forces Radiobiological Laboratory, and as well as in the pharmaceutical industry at American Cyanamid, which was later acquired by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. His contribution to science and agricultural research is evident in the 250 scientific publications that he authored or co-authored during his lifetime.
Joseph’s exceptional achievements have been recognized by numerous prestigious awards and fellowships, and have included recognition for his work in the fields of brain aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and nutritional neuroscience. In 2005, he was presented with the International Award for Modern Nutrition from the Swiss Milk Producers, and he is the recipient of the 2007 North Atlantic Area USDA Agricultural Research Service Scientist of the Year Award. Most recently, he received the 2009 SmithKlineGlaxo award for his commendable work in the field of polyphenol research. Additionally, he served in many roles in the American Aging Association, including many years on the Board of Directors as President of the association in 2003.
Joseph maintained a personal and professional passion for colorful plant-based foods, and his interest extended to his widely celebrated book The Color Code: A Revolutionary Eating Plan for Optimum Health. In The Color Code, Joseph explains how vibrantly colored food rich in phytochemicals provide protection against diseases such as cancer, arthritis, and memory and vision loss. The book has been translated into five languages, and many nutrition programs around the world have used its principles of eating colorful foods in advocating a healthier diet. While “5 A Day the Color Way” has been an often repeated nutritional catchphrase, Joseph actually recommend consuming nine to ten small servings of colorful foods per day rather than the heavily promoted five. This “pigment power” principle, which promotes good health and healthy aging through fruits and vegetables, has since become the cornerstone of controlling America’s health and obesity epidemic.
Joseph was also a valued member of the Bar Harbor Group, a group of scientists which regularly meet in Bar Harbor, Maine at the Wild Blueberry Research Summit to share research findings and explore opportunities for future collaboration. The Summit has met for twelve years, and has provided a valuable collaborative environment that encourages the excitement building around clinical trials and their successes.
Some of Joseph’s recent work includes collaboration with Barbara Shukitt-Hale, Ph.D, a colleague at USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging and member of the Bar Harbor Group. The study investigated whether polyphenols in blueberries can reduce the effects of inflammation in the brain and improve cognitive performance. Results of the study were published in Nutritional Neuroscience in August 2008 and indicated that blueberry polyphenols succeeded in boosting brain function by acting as an anti-inflammatory, a result that may be a product of the alteration of gene expression. Joseph had extended research focusing on the antioxidant properties of blueberries to begin identifying their effects on signaling pathways that cells use to enhance their protection against a variety of stressors.
While we mourn Jim’s death, we also acknowledge his truly amazing legacy. His outstanding contribution to nutrition research will continue to be appreciated throughout the scientific community, and his kind, gentle presence as a friend and colleague will be fondly remembered.
This post from Summer Tomato, “Sell Your Family On Healthy Eating Using Descriptive Copy”, poses a perfectly fun idea for motivating yourself and your family to eat well, inspired by a study concerning the psychology of eating that we discussed here a few weeks ago. It seems putting a little Madison Avenue in our kitchen creations means taking a page from Restaurant Row. Consider the wait staff at your favorite restaurant describing their specials. Do the terms sautéed, drizzled or chilled sound familiar? Colorful descriptions and mouth-watering modifiers can accomplish the chef’s goal of tapping into our visceral love of food even before we order.
Their efforts to sell the sizzle and not (necessarily) the steak really can help our healthy eating habits, suggests Summer Tomato. The idea is to start evoking ingredients’ attributes and seasonal freshness: instead of trying to push “salad” for dinner, start plugging “ginger scented little gem lettuces with grapefruit, hazelnuts and goat cheese.” Now that sounds delicious! Then, sneak in some adjectives as well: kale becomes Tuscan kale, carrots become sweet, and tomatoes become heirloom in an instant.
We also suggest taking this new Madison Avenue flair for food a step further. Got an idea for dinner in the AM before taking off to work? Use your copywriting skills to announce it on a decorative kitchen whiteboard or chalk/slate board. Not only can you get yourself and your family members excited about the Specialty du Jour, but you can stick to your plan of eating healthy – no stopping for take-out when the menu is there in black and white. And, studies indicate that if our expectations are that something will taste good, it will.
You can even use pictures to evoke a thousand words. If you found a recipe online or in a magazine, post the photo on your “menu” board (provided your version won’t pale in comparison). Let’s face it, Denny’s knows what they’re doing with their colorful photos of melting pads of butter sliding off stacks of pancakes. Hey, we can play that game, too. Move over, Moon Over My Hammy – say hello to Farm-fresh Sweet Corn and Slow-Roasted Organic Chipotle Chicken courtesy of Chez You!
Wax Poetic with Quinoa Salad
This Quinoa Salad with Wild Blueberries recipe from www.wildblueberries.com will help get you started dusting off those descriptors. Who can resist “creamy Havarti gently tossed with fresh garden zucchini”?
(Sold on the added adjective of “wild” when talking about blueberries? The moniker isn’t just sizzle: wild differentiates lowbush wild blueberries from their highbush cultivated counterparts. Wilds are smaller, have more of the powerful antioxidant anthocyanin, and demonstrate greater antioxidant capacity per serving than cultivated blueberries. They are also have a more intense, tangy-sweet flavor which makes them a excellent recipe ingredient.)
The nutrition community and those committed to healthy eating are increasingly aware of the current enthusiasm for frozen fruit. Recently, in the “Science of Living a Healthy Life” issue of The New York Times Magazine, an ad touted the frozen obsession by stating that “Mother Nature put wild blueberries on earth to be frozen.” The loud voices and pretty pictures disseminated by these “pro-fro” conspirators are glossing over the facts, leaving consumers to accept tactics reminiscent of the Great Dairy Refrigeration Deception of 1922. Today, common ethics have guided our decision to be vocal on this controversial issue. We urge consumers to consider the thoughtless inhumanity that quick freezing advances, and ask those in the frozen fruit industry to take a moment to weigh the desire to selfishly preserve taste and nutrition for our own convenience with its effect on defenseless fruits.
People didn’t always know what we know today – that wild blueberries are sensitive and unique and deserve respect, not the inhumanity of being picked and frozen. Some consumers may still be unaware that wild blueberries can live to be more than several weeks (one, recently discovered in a college dormitory, was determined to be over 5 months old), dying natural deaths by simply decaying, drying up or souring into mush. Without freezing, fruits and vegetables are able to live out their life span – they are free to languish into old age and are often eaten only when they have experienced an acceptable time of decomposition off of the bush. This is the way it has been since the beginning of time, before the introduction of the evils of individually quick freezing (IQF), and it should continue to be.
We also know that wild blueberries remember past acquaintances, and even engage in elaborate courtship rituals: they have been seen joining stems while one helps guide another along the winnowing belt. We realize blueberries actually have memories and can recall time spent in the field. They also possess sophisticated social structures: berries that remain a red or pink color often gather together as if in mutual support of one another. In fact, scientists that have devoted their lives to researching the berry say blueberries have the reasoning capacity of small children.
Only researchers who are funded by the IQF industry disagree with the assertion that fruits and veggies feel pain. These small, defenseless foods suffer when they are taken from the field and spiraled or tunneled and then blasted in a flash freezing device and subjected to unconscionable cryogenic temperatures that at worse, are terribly painful (though brief) and at best, just humiliating. Wild blueberries that are harvested at their peak thrash wildly trying to escape the harvester, and often spin incessantly in a state of confusion. In the journal Ursatt’s Science, researcher Tara Biulle described this method of freezing blueberries as “unnecessary torture.”
Further, today’s quick freezing method avoids cellular damage and prevents the formation of ice crystals on the fruit, and as a result, all the nutritional value of fresh is preserved while the fruit itself remains undamaged. This fact has been used by the pro-fro factions to convince the public that freezing is not harmful. This is not true. In reality, we know that in a time when quick freezing has become ubiquitous, wild blueberries that are pulled from their natural homes can sense imminent danger and experience several agonizing seconds of panic and dread. In short, freezing regularly condemns countless fruits and vegetables such as wild blueberries, mangoes, strawberries, even baby carrots to painful deaths.
We in the nutrition community urge all consumers to allow wild blueberries and all fruits and veggies to die either on the vine or on the shelf at room temperature, taking their nutritive value with them. That is what Mother Nature intended. In addition, we urge all compassionate consumers to walk by the frozen fruit in their grocery store, and instead, opt for foods that do not suffer outside its glass doors, such as pizzas or jalapeño poppers. Consider the dark lives these fruits and veggies lead before they reach us, and for the sake of wild blueberries and their brethren, please join us in declaring, “Freezing is for the cold hearted – not for me.”
Thank you for your time and consideration,
The Wild About Health Community
Thanks to PETA for providing us with the inspiration to speak out on this subject.
A month that celebrates what is in your freezer? You bet. Consider that less than a century ago, before the launch of quick frozen foods, consumers were unable to take advantage of the convenience and nutritional value of fruits, vegetables, meats and fish. Today, “frozen” has truly caught on with consumers who seem poised to take full advantage of the benefits. The race is on to feed healthy foods to our kids at home and at school, and all across the country people are paying attention to rising rates of obesity and preventable diseases. As a result, the demand for available, nutritious foods has skyrocketed. Nothing comes to the rescue better than frozen foods.
In 1998, the Food & Drug Administration confirmed that frozen fruits and vegetables provide the same essential nutrients and health benefits as fresh. What’s more is that quick frozen foods can actually be better than fresh because they retain their nutritional value longer, and they don’t lose nutrients as they age during shipping and storage. Foods like wild blueberries, for example, are picked and frozen at the peak of freshness, locking in all that antioxidant power, thanks to individually quick frozen (IQF) technology, and that’s exactly how they show up on your plate. And, fruits and vegetables like frozen wild blueberries are available in stores everywhere.
Consumers have discovered the facts about nutritional value, and they are demanding food that is available year round without nutritional sacrifices. A rising interest in competitive prices and low waste has only contributed to the budget stretching trend known simply as frozen. So go ahead and give your freezer a little love this month by stocking it with the benefits of frozen!
You can also join the fun by entering a $10,000 sweepstakes sponsored by the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association. Check it out at EasyHomeMeals.com.
We commend Real Age for touting alternate ways to get the cancer-fighting, anti-aging benefits of berries during the long cold winter. They suggest freeze-dried as an alternative to fresh. But don’t forget frozen. Frozen can have advantages over freeze-dried (quick freezing helps them to retain their shape) and also retain all the nutritional benefits!
“Get them frozen!” was the call from Frances Largeman-Roth, Senior Editor at Health Magazine, when she visited CBS’s Early Show recently to talk about women’s health. “They are cheaper, and just as good as fresh,” she reported about superfood list-topper, wild blueberries. Wild blueberries made the exclusive America’s Healthiest Superfoods for Women list which highlights only the foods that experts agree deliver mega-benefits when it comes to energy boosting, fat busting and disease prevention.
The list is made up of foods that go “above and beyond” Largeman-Roth said, working double-time to provide ways for women to be smarter, leaner and stronger. Her support for frozen is great advice for those of us who want convenience and nutrition year round. (You can read a previous post about why frozen is just as good as fresh.[link to frozen post])
Largeman-Roth also stressed that it’s wild that fits the bill: wild blueberries have a higher concentration of nutritional value than their cultivated counterparts.
What can the consumer do? Rely on trusted brands that use real blueberries – they do exist. And most importantly, read labels. Look for artificial colors, like Red # 40 and Blue #2, needed to provide that blue-like color to their sugars and petrochemicals used to fake their fruit – they usually show up at the bottom of the ingredients list.
