A concerned mother claims Whole Foods sold her a package of organic blueberries that contained at least one “silicone” piece of fruit that was fashioned to look like the real thing.
Aree Osbourne (@areeosbourne) posted a viral TikTok that’s accrued over 1.1 million views where she shows off the rubbery-looking faux-berry. She says that after finding it, she ended up going down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories after seeing others have also spotted mock food items being distributed with genuine sustenance.
“I don’t ever really post TikTok videos but I felt this deserved a post,” she begins. “I gave my daughter a bowl of blueberries the other day and I take what’s left in her little bowl and I put it down the drain for the garbage disposal.”
Osbourne says that when she pushed the button, she heard a clanking sound like something was stuck. She turns off the disposal and retrives a blueberry from inside and holds up what appears to be a fake, aka staging, blueberry to the camera.
The mother was shocked that there would be artificial/show food mixed together with real food in the same packaging.
“Why is there a rubber blueberry in my toddler’s snack? It went from carton, I washed what was in the carton, I put it in a bowl, and then I took from the bowl a couple of blueberries to give her for a snack,” she shares. “This came from the carton of blueberries. My husband cut it in half. I really don’t know if you can see it that well.”
After holding it up even closer to the camera, she acknowledges the shiny surface area of the blueberry, squeezing it in between her fingers before an epiphany hits: “Glistening…silicone. It’s a silicone blueberry.”
She claims how after looking up videos online, it is “apparently this is a thing.”
“Has anyone else had this happen?” she exclaims. “What do I do? What if she had eaten it? It is a solid, rubber, blueberry. She is under 2. I got this at Whole Foods, also. Organic, I was trying to like, you know, do the right thing. And, this is what happened. It’s super realistic!”
“What is going on?” she asks, widening her eyes before the video ends.
@areeosbourne fake food mixed with real food?? #wholefoods #momtok #toddlermom #fypage #rubberfruit ♬ original sound – Aree Osbourne
Folks finding ‘fake’ food
There were other folks who seemed to share in Osbourne’s concern over the strange food situation.
“I notice while cutting an onion that the onions doesn’t burn my eyes like they’ve use too,” one wrote.
Another worried aloud about a worst-case scenario, writing, “But how do we know if that’s the only rubber blueberry? What if she swallowed one??? Or did she not eat any of them??”
And judging by this one parent’s comment, it seems like her own kid has eaten a few of these fake blueberries too: “Might be TMI but my child has been pooping out WHOLE blueberries in the last week! She doesn’t have digestive problems at all!”
Apparently, there are also other fruits people have been buying out there that look like something out of a surrealist painting.
“Yes, I’ve seen this. I saw 2 different posts of a banana and a watermelon that were rubberish, still inside the banana peel and the rind. idk what’s going on with the fruits,”one wrote. It seems this commenter is referring to TikToker Kiva, who the Daily Dot covered when she discovered her strange-looking watermelon.
There have been other TikToks discussing what some are calling a phenomenon of fake fruit being foisted as genuine produce in various supermarkets all over the country. This video even references Osbourne’s clip, while also showing snippets of someone attempting to bend and snap a rubber banana in half to no avail. Another portion of the clip shows a person easily wiping off the skin of a watermelon as if its dark green layer was cellophane.
When it comes to watermelons, however, some commenters said this was less of a fake food conspiracy set out to do God-knows-what to the human population, and more of a case of the consequences of particular food preservation techniques: “These are watermelons that have been frozen and thawed,” one said.
Another penned, “This happens when watermelon is frozen and then thawed so this watermelon is perfectly safe to eat but it’s not gonna be as sweet as it could’ve been.”
However, there have been reports dating back years where others have claimed to have found fake blueberries in batches of real ones they’ve purchased from supermarkets. Unlike the one shown in Osbourne’s video, these blueberries at least appear to be edible. In 2011, the Los Angeles Times wrote: “A range of fake blueberries are in a number of retail food items that contain labels or photos suggesting real blueberries were used in the products, according to an investigation.”
The piece stated that numerous breakfast cereals claiming to contain blueberries even using pictures of genuine ones in their marketing didn’t actually contain real blueberries—just cobbled together bits of corn starch and sweetened syrups that were made to create the illusion of a blueberry: “The nonprofit Consumer Wellness Center reported Thursday that its investigation found ‘blueberries’ that were nothing more than a concoction of sugar, corn syrup, starch, hydrogenated oil, artificial flavors and — of course — artificial food dye blue No. 2 and red No. 40. The offenders are well-known manufacturers such as Kellogg’s, Betty Crocker and General Mills, and the fakes were found in bagels, cereals, breads and muffins.”
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