Childhood Snack That is TOO Good to Give Up!

Hello Everyone!

 Well so far so good! Bio 36 is going well and I am learning lots of new things! This weeks blog assignment is a fun one and deals with food! The assignment is too pick a food that you eat on a regular basis or a food interesting and unusual, and then research that food. Find out where it came from, how it was made, what it is made of, the whole works, as much information as  possible. The very first food that came to my mind was a long time favorite snack of mine that we always have around the house and that is fruit snacks!! You haven't had a childhood if you have never had a fruit snack! I am a fan of all fruit snacks but I do have a favorite!

These are my favorite!! Out of the hundreds of fruit snacks I've had growing up, these ones take the cake! They are amazing, and I almost cant help but to eat the whole bag at once. And the value pack is the way to go! But where did these delicious little snacks come from? and how the heck were they made!? Are they good for me? bad for me? what does their production consist of and what all is involved, as well as effected? All this information I went looking for, so let me share what I found out about my favorite fruit snack             

According to Shopwell.com Sunkist fruit snacks have things you would them to have, like low cholesterol, fat, saturated fat, and sodium, and not to mention that they are a great source of calcium! Some things about the snacks that aren't so good are that they have color additives, and sugar is added to them. However Sunkist claims that their snacks have 90% less sugar  then regular fruit snacks. And get this, the actual Sunkist company doesn't even make the fruit snacks, they rent their trademark name to other companies like Snapple, and General Mills, which is the company that actually makes theses fruit snacks. So all this time I thought I was buying a product made by Sunkist when all this time it was General Mills, one of the worlds largest food companies. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means I fell fool to good marketing. General Mills is actually a company which is striving to be as sustainable as possible. They are here in the United States located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. More than 85% of their packaging in North America is recyclable, and is among the largest users of post-consumer recycled paper packaging in the United States.   The fruit snacks themselves however, do come in individual plastic packaging. They are generally not made from fruit, but rather from sugar and fruit juice flavoring, or artificial flavoring. In this case these fruit snacks have both natural and artificial. Being a fruit snack it is obviously a processed food, that is produced in a factory. How it got from the factory to the shelves of my local grocery store, I am assuming is freight lines, since the company is located in the U.S. Things like how are food gets to our stores and the distances they are traveling is never really thought about we just are happy its their, fresh on the shelf. Weather or not these fruit snacks are healthy is entirely up to the consumer. I believe all food is healthy when eaten in moderation. When something like fruit snacks is over-consumed then of course they are unhealthy. But the way I look at it a pack of fruit snacks a day (maybe 2), cant hurt anyone. All in all it is surprising how much you can learn about an everyday snack when you just take a little bit of time to do the research.
General Mills Packaging Improvments