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Don't Be Fooled By This Popsicle Marketing Trick

June 21, 2011   31 Comments

Snack Girl has a bone to pick with Edy's Fruit Bars and every other frozen popsicle manufacturer who uses the word "fruit".

Edy's Fruit Bars Review

I purchased these popsicles thinking that they were essentially the same as my homemade popsicles only to look at the ingredients list when I got home.

No, I can't spend ALL DAY in the supermarket reading labels. I am super busy!

Here is the list of ingredients:

fruitbaringredients

The front of the box says "Made With Super Fruits" referring to Acai and Blueberry in the popsicle. I interpreted that statement to mean that there was no added sugar in these popsicles.

Since these are FRUIT bars and not just "sugar water" popsicles such as other brands, I assumed that they were made solely with fruit - like the ones I make at home.

and I paid about 50% more for this product than the store brand that just looked like colored, sugared water.

You see, you don't actually have to add anything to apple juice to make a great frozen treat. It just works.

Ummm, the second ingredient above is SUGAR. That means that the fruit ingredients are not contributing their natural sugar to the product as much as just plain old sugar.

These are really SUGAR BARS with added fruit. I guess that "Sugar Bars with added fruit" doesn't move many products off the shelves so the marketers here just played on our busy lifestyles and fed us this lie so that we would buy them.

Yes, I am calling the product name "Fruit Bars" a lie. Just because it has a little fruit in it does not make it a Fruit Bar!

And, then, of course there is also "corn syrup" added to this product. So, sugar and the fruit concentrates weren't enough to make these sweet - they had to add corn syrup as well.

The entire package sings the word "healthy" and I was completely fooled by it. I'm supposed to be the expert. sheeesh.

Please share your thoughts on Edy's Fruit Bars.

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31 Comments:

But it's ALL natural! ;-)

I used to eat the lime version of these all the time before I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. Delicious, but not healthy.

Since ingredients are listed in order of amount, you are dead on calling them sugar bars with added fruit! Why, oh why, do companies feel it is necessary to add sugar to fruit items. This makes me crazy - especially regarding applesauce. I picked up a name brand applesauce that was flavored because it said no added sugar. Yeah, but they added Spenda - to applesauce! Really? Argh.

Sorry, veered off into rantville, but the whole 'sugar up the fruit' campaign makes me crazy.

Colour me digusted. Glad I didn't waste any money on Edy's this week!

I have seen these Edy's bars before, and considered buying them because they have a coconut flavor that looked pretty good. Fortunately I read the label at the store and avoided buying them. I don't know of any healthy no-sugar added popsicles you can buy at the store. Not even organic ones. I just make my own. I never add sugar to fruit products because fruit is so sweet already!

I've fallen for that, too. So frustrating!

Wow...Ill continue to PASS on these in the store! Thank God my girls love making their own!! It's fun, yummy AND they get to be as creative as possible mixing their own flavors :-)

What's the basic recipe to make your own frozen fruit bars? Also, if I wanted to add yogurt to them is there a way to do that and freeze them? (I've had a lot of trouble freezing yogurt. I think I'm not doing it correctly.) Any advice would be appreciated on this. It is very timely for summer!

Sugar and corn syrup. Just what I want in my fruit bar--not. Yuck!

I don't know I like the Edy's Strawberry fruit bars. Ingredients start as water, strawberries, then sugar... etc. No corn syrup in these. They aren't great to have everyday, but once in a while, I think they're not bad. Better than HFCS stick ones.

I found Yasso greek yogurt pops at BJ's wholesale store. They have a lot of protein and a little sugar. I feel like they are a pretty healthy treat. It is tricky to find convenient.foods that are truly healthy.

Great post. I hate when that happens. i am pretty savvy about label reading but sometimes when we I am in a rush I just looking at the front of the box and then when i get home and look at the box i can not believe it. Home-ade is almost always better and unfortunately food manufactures do not seem to care about what is in their product. awareness and being a smart shopper is so important.

Dawn

magnificentmommies.com

blog- growing up with a fat dad

sadly a lot of people are misled when buying things, that's whats the companies hope for and prey on...people not reading the small ingredient print but focusing on the "natural ingredients" (which sadly includes sugar, HFCS, and others) so they think it's natural and 'made with fruit' doesnt say how much fruit's actually in the item...again misleading :( That's why it's usually healthier, better to make what you can yourself then you know what's really in it :)

I'm glad to see you calling them out on their misleading product.

The marketing that companies do to sell their products...it is disgusting.

I make my own frozen pops using plain yogurt and juice.

They were handing out frozen "fruit" bars at the Bolder Boulder (a 10K race) afterwards. I thought they were great and was going to buy some when I got around to it, but not now!!! Funny how when you get something at a race you assume it's healthy....

Oh, man! You know I never even looked at the ingredients. I just took their word for it when I read the front of the box. Thanks for clarifying!

I like sugar. But I'd rather get my sugar in REAL ice cream occasionally, or in chocolate (yum). The only "fruit" bars that should be adding a lot of sugar that I'd expect it in, would be the naturally SOUR fruits like lime and lemon. PS if I want a sugar popsicle with some fruit in it, the Mexicans do it VERY well and cheaper and don't advertise their confections as "healthy." I don't know how hard that is to find in other parts of the country but in California, Arizona, southwest US it's easy to find those.

I don't get it. Real blueberries, when picked at the peak of perfection are very sweet and delicious indeed. Why do they need to add sugar and/or hfcs to these bars???? I could see having sugar in an ice cream bar, obviously, but when a person chooses to buy a fruit bar, there is usually a reason - he or she wants a healthier option. Sigh.

LitChick I make my frozen yogurt bars with yogurt, fruit and half and half. I am guessing the half/half helps with the freezing. Which reminds me, I've been meaning to post this recipe to my blog and I've just been waiting for the weather to heat up. It would seem like it's time! :)

If you have such a big problem with these then JUST READ THE BACK. It still is a FRUIT bar because there IS FRUIT in it. There is NO LIE. Sheeeesh

Ohman. I have totally fallen for this. I have also bought applesauce before and when I looked at the ingredients label after I got home, the first ingredient was high fructose corn syrup! I learned to be more careful about what I buy.

People are so addicted to sugar that extra must be added in order to give it that "better taste." People won't buy it if it's not really sweet.

Actually, MOST of the so called "Fruit" bars out there have the exact ingredients as Edy's, which is why I made my boyfriend return the 2 boxes of what he thought were healthy treats back to the store. Thankfully, we found a Pure Frozen Fruit Bar at Whole Foods...a bit more pricey, but worth it when you compare the cost of what those junky sugar ingredients will cost your health. I agree, making your own is the smartest option. Thanks for posting this!

This reminds me of the avocado fiasco of a few years ago. I think it was Kraft? Anyway, the leading avocado spread at the time was shown to be all chemicals, colorants and like 2 or 3% avocado only. Pretty gross. Restaurants were using too for when you get avocado on something and it is spread like on a sandwich instead of the chunks. I always look at the back for everything if it is something I haven't bought before.

You know looking at the ingredient label again in the photo, it isn't even the sugar as an ingredient that is the worst. It is the fact that each bar has sugar AND corn syrup (they needed both?) and comes out to be 16g of sugar.

Aldi has Grandessa Fruit Bars that are much more fruit than sugar - Caribban Fruit Bars ingredient list: strawberries, pineapple, mango, passion fruit, coconut flakes, water, fructose, sucrose, natural stabilizers, citric acid. The Strawberry Fruit bars are also mostly fruit, but I don't have a box just now to copy the ingredients for you. I've been buying these for many years at Trader Joe's in San Diego - the exact same fruit bar :-) I was amazed to find them at Aldi stores here in Pennsylvania, but they are owned by the same family as Trader Joe's and many of their Grandessa brand items are the same as their counterpart at Trader Joe's.

The fruit bar fiasco is similar to labeling Organic Low Fat Chicken Broth as healthy when it contains autolyzed yeast, which is the same as MSG :-( I discovered this quite by accident, as it never occurred to me to read the label, trusting the Trader Joe's name and "organic" on the front of the box. I have emailed Trader Joe's my extreme displeasure, as I have always trusted them to sell really healthy food with no hidden 'bad' stuff. Of course, I should have read the label!

This post reminds me of the frozen fruit bars we used to get in the school cafeteria. They contained strawberries and applesauce, but I don't know if they contained additional sugar. They did market it as a healthy treat, calling it Dr. so-and-so's Health Bar or something like that. Does anyone remember these?

I find it sad that my school serves 'fruit' bars from Minute Maid. Aren't schools suppose to be 'healthy'?

Your post made me think about popsicles made from nothing but fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. Yum. Imagine that on a very hot day. Will try this.

I simply don't eat any of the supposed "wholesome," "all natural," "all fruit" snacks, treats or beverages. All this concocted man-made "food" is there to feed our addiction to sugars, fats, salts and other "food like substances." Leave it all alone. Food has become a pacifier to where we think we "need" popsicles, snacks and treats in order to feel good and be sated. There's no need to lament what food manufacturers put into their products and why? They are trying to make money. There is no need or mandate to care for us. It's up to us to care for our own bodies and simply not patronize these people or waste time wondering why they use the ingredients they do or place false information on the packages or hide ingredients with different names - especially when the government allows them to do so. They use these "ingredients" because they're cheap and increase profits. That's the bottom line.

FYI These popsicles are simply amazing and not everyone has time to make homemake popsicles like you don't have time to read the labels...they're good in moderation like anything else and there is sugar in regualr fruit as well so for you they may not be pratical-for just about everyone else they're great! :)

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