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Food investigations: Welch's fruit juice cocktails contain more corn than fruit: 80% water and high fructose corn syrup

Thursday, May 02, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
Tags: Welch's, fruit juice, high fructose corn syrup

Welch's

(NaturalNews) If you buy fruit juices at your local grocery store, you might notice the Welch's brand juices sold in refrigerated cartons. Welch's calls them "refrigerated cocktails" and offers exotic-sounding flavors like Strawberry Peach, Dragon Fruit Mango Cocktail and Orange Pineapple Apple.

These products are aggressively marketed with pictures of splashy fruit and loud label claims like "Fruity and Refreshing!" But what Welch's doesn't reveal anywhere except in the fine print on its ingredients label is that these juice cocktails contain more high fructose corn syrup than fruit.

In fat, they contain so much high fructose corn syrup that the front label should actually show chunks of corn rather than the fruit they currently depict.

Is this corn syrup derived from GMO corn? See below for more...

Deceptively marketed and labeled

A Natural News investigation concludes that Welch's refrigerated cocktails are deceptively labeled and marketed. The Welch's website, for starters, hides the ingredients list from consumers, showing nutrition facts but not ingredients. High fructose corn syrup only shows up under ingredients, not nutrition facts.

The front label of Welch's Strawberry Peach product uses the phrase, "Fruity & Refreshing" in a prominent position on the label. But if this claim were accurate, it would actually say, "Corny & Refreshing" because it's made more from corn than fruit.

The front label (see picture below) also intentionally leaves out any mention of corn syrup even though high fructose corn syrup is the second most prominent ingredient of the product, right after water. It says:

Strawberry Peach flavored fruit juice cocktail blend made with apple, pear, strawberry and peach juices from concentrate.

No mention of corn.

The back label (see image below) begins with a giant, all-caps "LOVE" statement, jumping on the bandwagon of trying to associate LOVE with its product, even though no rational person would use the word "LOVE" to describe a highly refined liquid sugar that has been repeatedly linked to diabetes and obesity.

Welch's annual report admits it is aware that consumers seek to avoid HFCS

All this corn syrup is being pushed as fruit juice despite the fact that Welch's 2012 annual report openly admits the company is fully aware that consumers are attempting to avoid high fructose corn syrup.

It reads:

"Our mid-priced essentials line continued to grow in FY '12 with its powerful message -- no high fructose corn syrup."

The context of this statement clearly implies that "no high fructose corn syrup" is a benefit of its essentials line of products. Yet, simultaneously, Welch's continues to promote other products that contain alarming proportions of HFCS while avoiding any mention of corn on the front label.

80% water and corn syrup!

Only when you get to the back label do you learn that these Welch's fruit juice cocktails -- which are heavily adorned with photos and words that describe and imply "fruit" -- are actually 80% water and corn syrup.

The first two ingredients are Filtered Water (i.e. tap water) and High Fructose Corn Syrup. An easy-to-miss bit of text admits, "Contains 20% juice," meaning 80% of the beverage is not juice.

Nowhere does the product claim to be free of GMOs. As the vast majority of high fructose corn syrup produced in North America is derived from genetically modified corn, it is very likely that the HFCS used by Welch's is actually GMO. A genetic test would not confirm this, however, as the heavy processing of HFCS destroys genetic integrity, rendering genetic ID tests useless.

Here are the photos of the label: (story continues below)





Deceptive labeling pushes more high fructose corn syrup to children

Welch's fruit juice cocktails are depicted as if they were nothing but fruit juice. The photos, descriptive text and website text all imply they are made of nothing other than fruit juices. Nowhere on the product front label, website or promotional materials is corn depicted at all.

When consumers shop for fruit juices at their local grocery stores, they are easily misled by deceptive labeling practices such as those used by Welch's. Consumers use the pictures and prominent text on the front of the product as their primary cues to determine the composition of the product, and if that product label primarily depicts fruit and fruit juices, a typical consumer will incorrectly assume the product is primarily made of fruit and fruit juices. That same consumer will typically have no idea the product contains more corn derivatives than fruit juice.

Most consumers -- especially parents -- are actively trying to avoid high fructose corn syrup. This is often the reason why they choose fruit juice instead of sodas, as a matter of fact. Yet if they reach for Welch's juice cocktails, they are getting the exact same refined liquid sugar they were trying to avoid by choosing juice instead of soda!

Here at Natural News, we think Welch's should be ashamed of itself for pushing water and high fructose corn syrup as a fruit juice beverage. Its labeling practices deceive rather than inform consumers.

We urge you to call the Welch's comment line at 1-800-340-6870 and demand they stop selling high fructose corn syrup as fruit juice.

Corn is not a fruit. And corn syrup is not fruit juice. It is, however, often contaminated with mercury.

Demand that Welch's stop tricking consumers into thinking corn syrup is fruit juice.

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About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com) and a globally recognized scientific researcher in clean foods. He serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and Native American Indians. He's also of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his "Health Ranger" passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the founder and publisher of the open source science journal Natural Science Journal, the author of numerous peer-reviewed science papers published by the journal, and the author of the world's first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over a dozen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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