Wendyl Wants To Know: Fanta Blueberry maker should perhaps look for a different shade of blue

Fanta Blueberry Flavour 1.5 litres for $3.39.

Before you start reading the column this week I want you to take a long, hard look at the picture of this Fanta and tell me honestly if you've ever seen any food item this colour in nature.

In case the printing hasn't done it any favours, it is a bright, almost fluorescent blue which I've only seen once in the Mediterranean - the result of very deep ocean reflecting the sun's rays. The bluest food I know of in nature is blueberries, but they are a dark, deep blue, not this hyperactive blue.

So now that we've established there is no food this colour in nature, why would you feed it to your children or yourself? Why wouldn't you say to yourself "that's not real, so what is it?"

Ingredients

• Carbonated water
Like most soft drinks this is mostly made up of carbonated water. Which is good for you - if you drink it on its own.

• Sugar
This is a very high sugar product. You'll get 31g or 7.4 teaspoons per 250ml serve. That's higher than the equivalent amount of Coca Cola with 27g or 5.2 teaspoons.

• Food Acid (330)
This is citric acid which could be in here for flavour or as a preservative.

• Flavour
This will be artificial flavour. I reluctantly tasted this and it tasted nothing like blueberries, more like a very sweet cough syrup.

• Preservative (202)
This is potassium sorbate which is neutralised sorbic acid.

• Stabiliser (452)
Stabilisers keep processed food from separating or going cloudy and keep it generally looking good while it sits on the shelf. To do this diphosphates (452), which are salts of phosphoric acid that is made from phosphorus, have been added. It also contributes to flavour in some soft drinks.

In 2006 the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that women who drank cola, which also has phosphorus in it, had lower bone density in their hips.

While it's unclear whether the phosphoric acid in cola is the direct cause, the researchers found that cola drinkers had a lower overall intake of calcium. So if you're a woman it's a good idea not to drink soda drinks with phosphorus in them.

• Colour (133)
This is the artificial colour brilliant blue (133) made from oils.

In 2007 a study in UK medical journal The Lancet found that consumption of this and other artificial colours may be linked to attention deficit disorder. Following this, Nestle-Rowntree, which makes Smarties, pulled its blue Smarties and later brought them back, replacing brilliant blue with a spirulina-based colouring.

Since then Mars, which makes M&M's, petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration in 2012 for permission to also use spirulina for food dyes.

Highlights
Uses artificial blue colour which has been replaced in Smarties and M&M's.
More sugar than an equivalent serving of Coke.
Uses artificial flavour.

My recommendations
In my opinion, this is not something you should be drinking or letting your kids drink. In Countdown this week these 1.5-litre bottles were on special. You could get three for just $6 so that's officially cheaper than milk, which is $2.75 a litre. At least if you were drinking dyed blue milk (which you could actually get in the 90s) you'd be getting some nutrition, unlike this sugar and water concoction. And why don't we ever see milk on special?

As you can see this is really sugar dissolved in water with some artificial flavours and colours added.

It is possible these days to find soft drinks which use less sugar than 7.4 teaspoons a serve and naturally flavour and colour their drinks.

They may cost a little more but they are much better for you and your kids.

Read Wendyl's columns on other food products here.

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