Fruit Gushers


Fruit Gushers are a Betty Crocker-branded fruit snack introduced in 1991 and rated highly as of 2013.

History

Introduced in 1991, Fruit Gushers are a fruit snack from the Betty Crocker brand. Targeted at children, Gushers were acorn-shaped with a soft "licorice-like" exterior and a liquid inside, included "strawberries and pear puree concentrate", and came in two flavors: "Strawberry Splash" and "Gushin' Grape". A contemporary Sun-Sentinel review said that the insides oozed rather than gushed, and found the confectionary surprisingly pleasant. Each box of Fruit Gushers was list priced at and contained six pouches of Gushers, each of which had nine individual pieces for per pouch.

Composition

Strawberry-flavored Fruit Gushers are composed of pear concentrate, sugar, dried corn syrup, corn syrup, modified corn starch, fructose, and grape juice concentrate.
In 2003, one serving of any Fruit Gushers variety was one package with 90 calories, zero protein, of fat, and of carbohydrates. In his 2018 book, Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom, Fred Provenza noted that while Fruit Gushers are fruit-flavored, their nutritional composition is very different from their produce counterparts. While 90 calories worth of Strawberry Fruit Gushers equaled and contained of sugar, 1g of fat, and cost ; 90 calories worth of actual strawberries equaled and contained of dietary fiber, "many minerals and vitamins, and thousands of phytochemicals." Provenza called Fruit Gushers "empty calories".

Varieties

Betty Crocker released a new variety of Fruit Gushers in early 2020: "Galactic Fruit Gushers". These featured the flavors "Asteroid Apple", "Berry Star Cluster", and a mystery flavor labeled "Unidentified Flavored Object"; the latter was part of a contest where consumers could guess at the unknown flavor and win prizes "like sweatshirts, hats, blankets, pop sockets, and more". Galactic Fruit Gushers were sold through Walmart.com for.

Reception

In 2013, Complex magazine ranked Fruit Gushers the second-best fruit snack of all time, coming in behind another Betty Crocker product, Shark Bites.