I'm not going to lie, it may be a little difficult to find much about strawberries during the winter, but that is why I've decided to look into foods that claim to have strawberries in them. One of these such products is Special K bars. "The perfect dieter-on the go breakfast bar with only 90 calories! Now in Strawberry ((naturally and artificially flavored))" This sign is what got me wondering about what they mean by artificial flavoring.
Generally, American society takes everything for face value. "It says it's 90 calories, and can make me lose 6lbs in 2 weeks? Then it must be healthy!" Healthy, until we read the fine print. To me atleast, Special K has been a brand that would use natural ingredients and set the standard for healthy living. Then again, why would I trust a pre-packaged food item?
After quickly glancing down the side of the box, trying to sort through 50 plus ingredients I found what I was looking for "Strawberry flavored fruit pieces". Now what does that mean? Well according to Special K these "fruit pieces" consist of "sugar, cranberries, citric acid, natural strawberry flavor with other natural flavors, elderberry juice concentrate for color, sunflower oil". Im glad to know those little red specs I've been eating are actually cranberries mixed with a bunch of other non-strawberry flavors... opps there is some natural strawberry flavor in there too (whatever that means).
Maybe Special K has banked on the fact that if you tell us the red spec we are eating is strawberry, we won't second guess it, or maybe they're really to blame. In the end I think we only have ourselves to blame in this matter, we're the consumers and if we really wanted something fresh we should probably head to our local farm.
