We wish the headline was improved ingredients for fruit roll ups, but unfortunately that is not the case. The good news is that that the front of pack of will be changing to be less deceptive.You see, Strawberry Fruit Roll-ups were taken to court last year. Apparently they don’t contain any strawberries.
The current label states
“Made with Real Fruit” and
“Strawberry Naturally Flavored”
The average Jane or Joe are led to believe this product actually contains strawberries. But here is the ingredient list:
Pears from Concentrate, Corn Syrup, Dried Corn Syrup, Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil, Contains 2% or Less of: Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Acetylated Monoglycerides, Fruit Pectin, Dextrose, Malic Acid, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Natural Flavor, Color (Red 40, Yellows 5 & 6, Blue 1).
As you can see, there are a lot of ingredients here, but not one of them is strawberry.
In a settlement to resolve the lawsuit brought on by consumer watchdog group CSPI, the labels will be updated by the manufacturer, General Mills:
So long as the product continues not to contain strawberries, the new labels will not depict images of strawberries, according to the agreement. And, so long as the product’s label carries the claim “Made with Real Fruit,” such claims will be required to include the actual percentage of fruit in the product. Both of those changes will take effect in 2014. Read more from CSPI…
Regardless of the labeling, why a parent would want to feed this product to their child is a mystery to us, what with all the artificial colors and trans-fats. But that’s a topic for a different post.
