The Wave of the Future

If you like your soda carbonated, why wouldn't you want your fruit carbonated, too, right?

After all, it's just an effort to eat healthier:

It's Fizzy Fruit — whole grapes or slices of apples or pineapples carbonated in a secret process with the same carbon dioxide that's in soft drinks but without added sugar.

At a time of resolutions to eat better and calls for healthier snacks for kids, two powerhouses of food retailing, Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven, just began selling Fizzy Fruit in some stores in the Southeast and Southwest. Disney thinks enough of the product that it plans a March promotion for Fizzy Fruit cups tied to its upcoming film "Meet the Robinsons."

The fruit is raising eyebrows as one of the more unusual — if not provocative — food items in stores.

Food scientist Steven Witherly predicts kids may like it so much that overall fruit consumption actually could rise. But Witherly, author of the upcoming book "Why Humans Like Junk Food," warns, "The consumption of nonfizzed fruit may decrease."

Next up: carbonated soy, broccoli, and wheat germ.