Popular TikToker Cloud Boy (@zielzebub) said he discovered mold inside bottles of Minute Maid apple juice in a viral video.
In the video, which has been viewed over 510,000 times since it was first posted on April 19, Cloud Boy addressed Minute Maid while holding up two empty bottles of the brand’s apple juice.
“I just wanted to let you know that as an autistic person, I went through a nightmare today with your product,” Cloud Boy said, revealing that he always drinks two juices at a time and that the first one tasted fine.
“I took a nice big chug-a-lug of this [second] one, only to be met with the taste of cleaning product or something. And then to my horror, this is what I found,” he said, turning his camera to his sink, in which chunks of an unknown substance floated.
“I definitely drank mold,” Cloud Boy said. He then showed the batch number on the bottle, telling Minute Maid it would “probably help in some way” before ending the video.
“When your safe food becomes no longer safe,” he added in the caption.
@zielzebub When your safe food becomes no longer safe #asd #safefood #minutemaid #mold ♬ Apple Juice – Jessie Reyez
He posted a second video the following day. In it, he stared at a vending machine with Minute Maid apple juice but did not buy any. “When something not very cool happened yesterday and your safe food isn’t safe anymore,” the video’s text overlay read.
@zielzebub Maybe next month #asd #safefood ♬ Goodbyes – Post Malone
Many commenters under Cloud Boy’s original video advised him to reach out to Minute Maid’s parent company, Coca-Cola. Some speculated that what Cloud Boy found inside his apple juice wasn’t mold but symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY), which is often found in Kombucha and actually very healthy to consume. “Your juice is turning to apple vinegar,” one said.
“It’s just fermented, its a ACV ‘mother’ growing… which is awful in it’s own way,” another said.
According to Autistics United Canada, “Autistic culture has coined two terms to describe our relationships with our favourite food: safefood and samefood. Safefood is a food that brings us joy, comfort, and peace when we eat it. Samefood is a food that we have grown so attached to that we can, or do, eat it every day. It is very normal for safefood to also be samefood.”
Cloud Boy, who is autistic, referred to the apple juice as his safe food and is now taking his 530,000 followers on the hunt to find a new brand. “Nothing else is good,” he wrote in a post featuring him trying the Tropicana’s apple juice.
After receiving an overwhelming amount of suggestions to try the Martinelli’s apple juice, Cloud Boy did just that but rated it a three out of 10, arguing it “tastes like syrup.”
In his latest video, Cloud Boy appealed to all the companies that make apple juice. “I need juice. You need advertisement,” he said. “You are missing out on wonderful PR opportunities.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Cloud Boy via TikTok direct message and Coca-Cola via contact form.
