U.S. food companies caught faking blueberries with artificial colors and liquid sugars, reveals Health Ranger investigation

(NaturalNews) A Food Investigations mini-documentary released today exposes the “blueberry deception” in name-brand cereals, bagels, breads and bars. As revealed in the investigative video (www.FoodInvestigations.com), big-name food companies that offer blueberry cereals, muffins, pastries and bars have been caught “faking” the blueberries by creating them out of artificial colors, partially-hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This investigation was conducted by award-winning investigative journalist Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as part of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (www.ConsumerWellness.org), which provides nutrition grants for children’s education programs around the world. The non-profit “blueberry deception” video can be viewed in its entirety at www.FoodInvestigations.com Total cereal called “Total fraud” Named in the video are Kellogg’s, Target, Betty Crocker, General Mills and other food companies that use artificial colors to create the illusion of real blueberries in their products. One General Mills cereal singled out in the mini-documentary is called Total Blueberry Pomegranate Cereal . But a Consumer Wellness Center investigation reveals that this cereal contains neither blueberries nor pomegranates. Source: General Mills website nutrition facts label: http://www.naturalnews.com/images/Total_Blueberry_Pomegranate.jpg The cereal does, however, contain an astonishing 8 different sweeteners : Sugar, Corn Syrup, Barley Malt Extract, Brown Sugar Syrup, Malt Syrup, Sucralose, Molasses and Honey. The front label of the Total cereal box claims “100% Nutrition.” After investigating the real ingredients of Total cereal, Mike Adams called the product a “total fraud.” He added, “It’s clear to me that General Mills is deceptively marketing Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal by trying to deceive consumers into believing it contains both blueberries and pomegranates — two foods that are gaining a reputation as healthy ingredients in the minds of consumers.” “If consumers don’t read the ingredients label, they may be easily misled into believing they are purchasing a cereal containing health-enhancing blueberries and pomegranates, when in reality they are buying sugared-up grains promoted with shamelessly deceptive marketing,” said Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, who researched, scripted and narrated the Food Investigations episode. General Mills, however, isn’t the only big-name food company called out in the shocking video documentary. Several other companies are also exposed in the mini-documentary available for viewing at www.FoodInvestigations.com How to avoid fake blueberries in food products As explained in the video, consumers can avoid being deceived by food companies by following these three simple steps: #1) Read the ingredients labels and look for artificial colors such as Red #40, Blue #1 and Blue #2. They are usually found near the end of the ingredients list. #2) Don’t buy foods made with artificial colors because the purpose of those colors is to cosmetically alter the appearance of those foods to make them appear more visually stimulating in order to “trick” or influence the consumer’s purchasing decisions. When eating blueberry-colored cereals or pastries, many consumers actually believe they’re eating real blueberries, even though no blueberries whatsoever may be used in the making of the product. #3) Don’t let your kids eat foods with artificial colors . At least one artificial color has been linked to symptoms of ADHD. Artificial colors are derived from coal tars and several colors have been banned in the past few decades due to human health hazards . Furthermore, you can refuse to buy products from companies that use artificial colors . These include all the major cereal companies and mainstream food producers. Artificial colors are also widely used in processed meats where the ingredient known as “sodium nitrite” is actually a red color fixer that gives dead, putrid-looking meat a fresh red appearance. Sodium nitrite, which is found in nearly all mainstream hot dogs, lunch meats, ham products, bacon, sausage and jerky products, is linked to alarming increases in risks of pancreatic cancer, color cancer and even brain tumors in children. (http://www.naturalnews.com/sodium_nitrite.html) Real blueberries are great for you! Adams believes it is important to emphasize that real blueberries are very good for human health. “Real blueberries offer a powerhouse of health-enhancing nutrition. They protect arteries, health lower blood pressure and provide an assortment of natural antioxidants to protect the eyes, brain and nervous system,” Adams says. Blueberries are also known to help prevent cancer, boost memory and even help reduce belly fat (http://www.naturalnews.com/blueberries.html). Watch for more food investigations from consumer health advocate Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at www.FoodInvestigations.com Join the online protest against General Mills General Mills is not an evil company, at least not in the sense of “Monsanto evil.” Although they made a huge mistake with their misleading Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal, they do provide several healthy brands such as Cascadian Farm and Muir Glen . They also bought Larabar a year or two ago, and that’s a decent food bar (although it’s still not organic). We want to help educate General Mills to the fact that customers are smarter than they think . We are paying attention, and we will boycott General Mills when they decide to treat us like consumer morons. Join us in contacting General Mills and urging them to stop their deceptive marketing practices that deceive consumers about what’s really inside the box. Use the following contact page to offer your feedback: http://generalmills.com/en/ContactUs.aspx Sample comment you may wish to submit: I am a General Mills customer who is appalled at the dishonest product naming and labeling used to promote Total Blueberry Pomegranate Cereal, which contains no blueberries nor pomegranates. I am joining an online protest organized by NaturalNews.com and the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center to urge you to recall this falsely-labeled product and either change the product name and labeling or reformulate it to contain actual blueberries and pomegranates. As a health-conscious consumer, I strongly object to your use of these superfoods in the name and labeling of your Total cereal when your own ingredients reveal the blueberries to be faked through the use of artificial food coloring chemicals, vegetable oils and processed sugars. Until such time that you announce your intention to remedy the misleading labeling and marketing of your Total cereal product, I will join NaturalNews.com in boycotting all General Mills products as a measure of protest against deceptive marketing practices. Regards, (Type your name here) Keep in mind that if you give General Mills your *real* email address in their contact form, they will obviously have your email. (And I’m not sure how they will use it.) So you may wish to use a throwaway email address when using their feedback form. That’s up to you. I personally don’t want General Mills sending me promotional emails for Lucky Charms.

Pomegranate juice components block cancer cell migration

(NaturalNews) One of the most dreaded consequences of cancer is when the disease metastasizes — meaning it spreads from the primary site where it started to other parts of the body. But University of California, Riverside (UCR) scientists have announced what could be a major breakthrough in halting metastasis. They’ve discovered components in pomegranate juice that inhibit the movement of cancer cells and weaken the attraction of malignant cells to a chemical signal that has been shown to promote metastasis. The UCR findings were just presented at the American Society for Cell Biology’s 50th Annual Meeting, which is being held in Philadelphia. Specifically, the research team from the UCR laboratory of Manuela Martins-Green, Ph.D., found that pomegranate juice seems to block the spread of prostate cancer cells to the bone. The group is planning additional tests to determine the effects of various doses of the natural pomegranate compounds and whether there are any side effects. In earlier studies, Dr. Martins-Green and her colleagues used a standardized concentration of pomegranate juice on two types of laboratory-cultured prostate cancer cells that were resistant to the male hormone testosterone. Scientists have long known that when cancerous cells are resistant to testosterone, that’s an indicator those cells have a strong potential to metastasize. Not only did the research team find pomegranate juice killed many cancer tumor cells — the pomegranate juice treatment also increased cell adhesion and decreased cell migration in those cancer cells that had not died. Next the scientists analyzed the pomegranate juice to figure out which specific ingredients produced the molecular impact on cell adhesion and migration in metastatic prostate cancer cells. Dr. Martins-Green, graduate student Lei Wang and undergraduate student Jeffrey Ho discovered the answer: phenylpropanoids, hydrobenzoic acids, flavones and conjugated fatty acids found in the fruit. “This is particularly exciting because we can now modify these naturally occurring components of the juice to improve their functions and make them more effective in preventing prostate cancer metastasis,” Dr. Martins-Green said in a media statement. “Because the genes and proteins involved in movement of prostate cancer cells are essentially the same as those involved in movement of other types of cancer cells, the same modified components of the juice could have a much broader impact in cancer treatment.” The idea that pomegranate phytochemicals have an anti-cancer effect isn’t new. In fact, evidence has been steadily accumulating over the past few years that along with other health benefits (such as soothing inflammation in the body and potentially reducing the risk of heart disease) pomegranates can prevent and/or treat cancer. For example, earlier in 2010, NaturalNews reported on a study published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research showing that phytochemicals known as ellagitannins found in pomegranate fruit could prevent the development of hormone-dependent breast cancer and halt the growth of estrogen-driven tumors (http://www.naturalnews.com/027947_pomegranates_brst_cancer.html). In addition, in a 2006 study of prostate cancer patients who drank eight ounces of pomegranate juice every day, UCLA researchers found a decline in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels that suggested a potential slowing of cancer progression. More recently, the results of a long-term study published in the Journal of Urology concluded pomegranate juice may effectively slow the progression of prostate cancer, even when regular treatment has failed (http://www.naturalnews.com/026190_cancer_Prostate_pomegranate_juice.html#ixzz17Lfyh6h5). However, despite all the science showing pomegranate juice could have anti-cancer effects, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has come down hard on claims about those potential benefits. In Sept. 2010, the FTC filed a lawsuit against Pom Wonderful, the natural foods company that provided the pomegranate juice for the UCLA research and has supported other research on pomegranate juice, charging the company’s claims about the juice’s health benefits were misleading. For more information: http://www.naturalnews.com/pomegranate.html

Fight prostate cancer with pomegranates

(NaturalNews) Researchers from the University of California, Riverside, have identified yet another medicinal use for the pomegranate. According to Manuela Martins-Green, a professor of cell biology and author of the recent study, certain pomegranate compounds work to fight prostate cancer cells and prevent them from growing and spreading throughout the body. The findings support earlier work that has also identified the anti-cancer properties of pomegranates. In order for prostate cancer cells to take hold and spread, they need a steady supply of testosterone. But in the presence of phenylpropanoids, hydrobenzoic acids, flavones and conjugated fatty acids — four specific types of compounds found in pomegranates — prostate cancer cells are unable to interact with the hormone and spread. These same compounds prevent prostate and other cancers from spreading to the bones, and they even cause existing cancer cells to die. In a previous prostate cancer study, researchers also noted that the ellagitannins in pomegranates work not only to slow the growth of cancer cells in general, but also to induce cancer cell death (http://www.naturalnews.com/022495.html). “Because the genes and proteins involved in the movement of prostate cancer cells are essentially the same as those involved in the movement of other types of cancer cells, the same … components of the juice could have a much broader impact in cancer treatment,” explained Martins-Green. The findings were presented at the 50th annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in Philadelphia. They add to the growing body of evidence about the powerful medicinal qualities of pomegranates that include their ability to prevent and treat infections, inflammation, high cholesterol, tissue damage, heart disease, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, and cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/pomegranate.html). Sources for this story include: http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/pomegranate-juice-compounds-specifically-identified-fight-prostate-cancer

Healthy Bounties From Pomegranates

A pomegranate is a round shaped, exquisite fruit with a sweet and bitter taste. It is usually farmed in different places all around the globe at the drier parts of Southeast Asia, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, North India, the East Indies and southern europe and Africa.It is a local fruit in Iran but known to be [...]