Who Invented Fruit Snacks?
Early human's struggle to find nourishment began the evolution of the fruit snack. Hunters became gatherers, incorporating fruit into expanding diet choices. Desirable not only for its nutritional value but also taste when dried, this easily transportable food became a staple and a snack. Some fruits became the snack choice of ancient rulers for the sticky confections created over the ages. With the development of baking, incorporating fruits into sweet treats and snacks grew, testing the limits of pastry cooking imagination. Today, fruit snacks come charged with vitamins, calcium and other health supplements. Does this Spark an idea?
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Mesopotamians
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The first urbanized civilization of Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago harnessed water for irrigation canals, enabling lush fruit gardens to burst from otherwise dry land. The cornucopia of these harvests included tree fruits such as apples, pears, plums, pomegranates, quinces, apricots and cherries. Southern Mesopotamia grew dates, which were rich in sugar and iron. When fresh or dried, most of these fruits were easy snacks, and they also were included in meals, particularly during cold months when crops and vegetation lay fallow.
Egyptians
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Likely the forerunner of the modern fruit snack is the dried fig paste rolled between two sheets of papyrus during ancient Egypt's Third Dynasty (2681-2613 BCE). The easily portable fig paste became a valuable trade item securing it as an early global snack.
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Betty Crocker via General Mills
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General Mills, owner of Betty Crocker products--which introduced the first Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups in the late 1970s--set a precedent in world snacking. By the mid-1980s, the fruit snack was a multimillion-dollar business.
21st Century Fruit Snacks
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Whether roped, made in animal and cartoon shapes, frozen on a stick or part of a whipped smooth milky or icy drink, fruit is a basic of popular snacks of the 21st century. Most major manufacturers of cereals and fruit drinks, as well as candy companies, market fruit snack products. Fast-food vendors now include fruit snacks on value and general menus.
Nutritional Value
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The most nutritionally valuable fruit snack is the one cut into pieces from a fresh piece of fruit. Freeze-dried fruits are second to the fresh-cut in offering healthy nourishment. Some newer fruit snack products are gluten-free or are made with concentrated fruit juices.
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- Photo Credit Image by Fotolia.com, courtesy of Tomasz Pawlowski
