De-fuzed

It's a cool autumn evening and after a long walk around the small ponds with Ira (he has short legs) enjoying the fall colors I prepared a big sippy-cup of watered down juice made from concentrate for him to drink, thinking I was so clever to give him something he loved so much, but in a rationed and controlled way. However, it dawned on me that I might be doing my son a dis-service, preparing and training him to only recognize and consume beverages that aren't all they profess to be.

Okay, so I'm exaggerating a bit, but I was really surprised this week with a small discovery. A friend I frequently eat lunch with at work has been sporting some fancy fuze fruit drinks lately, whose packaging oozes with the image of some amazing fruit drink with exotic flavors, like my beloved Brazilian Acai. I inspected the packaging expecting to see some marketing to the effect of "With this fruit drink you get XX servings of fruit". Luckily they weren't that blatant in their deception.

They had above the nutrition facts boldly printed 5% juice. Clearly they must be pumping it full of the vitamins a real fruit drink would give you. As I moved to the ingredient list I was extremely surprised that there were only two, that's right, two ingredients that made up 99.5% of the drink. Water and apple juice. The packaging then declared that 'less than .5%' of a long list of stabilizers, mostly foreign sounding (unless you are a chemist), and flavoring made up the rest.

I inspected several flavor varieties of the drink over the next few days of lunch and noticed they all had only two main ingredients, water and apple juice. I asked him, 'They are basically selling you watered down apple juice. Do you feel ripped off?' I was stunned at his reply. 'No. It tastes like the flavor I expect to taste. I can't complain.' I suppose that will do in some circles.

As I reflected I wondered what other products I might be consuming that are less than what they claim to be. Thoughts?

P.S. I wanted to work something in here about Mio, which I guess is this dye you squeeze into water to make juice? I don't even know. All I know is that when I see the yellow dye defusing through the water in the ads on hulu I'm a little disturbed.

What am I buying?

Being in a new place makes even the tiniest things stand out, even if they are common place. For some reason the marketing/product design/value of some items have stood out to me the last few weeks.

First, Concord Foods, 'Smoothie' mix. The "JUST ADD" directions are what got me. It says, "JUST ADD: fresh strawberries, milk, and ice", So why am I buying a mix? Here is the website description since the picture is small: "Create your own thick, creamy smoothie with our Strawberry Smoothie Mix. Refreshing strawberries loaded with vitamins! Blended with strawberries, milk and ice, each packet contains enough mix to make 1 quart of delicious tasting smoothie. Use skim milk for a low fat option."

I did not buy this because I really couldn't see what I was getting from it.

Second, Galliker's Milk. We bought it because it was the only option at the little store we stopped at to get milk our first night, but the yellow jug almost had me going to another store. If there is one color I don't really want to associate my milk with it's yellow.

Anyone else observe any good/ odd items on the market lately?