How can you be anti-juice? Commercials with cute kids singing songs about their juice, which looks jummy and sweet through the TV. But is juice all that great? Yesterday, the NYT had an article entitled Sugar Finds Its Way Back to the School Cafeteria. The gist of the article is that Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Co and Cadbury Schweppes were very "shrewd" in voluntarily agreeing to only supply water, low-fat milk and juice to elementary and middle schools and additionally other drinks with less than 66 calories per 8 ounces, light juices and diet sodas to high schools. The reporter wants us to be outraged that this will open the door to drinks like Gatorade, Propel and Vitaminwater that are "enhanced" with vitamins our kids don't even need! And of course we all know that (gasp) Coke owns Vitaminwater!!
Why not be outraged about juice? First of all, (gasp) who owns the juice companies? Coke owns Minute-Maid, Pepsi owns Tropicana, and Cadbury Schweppes owns Mott's. Ah, shrewd. Second, juice is very high-calorie. If all this whoopla is about preventing obesity in children, then shouldn't we really be worried about calories? According to the Minute-Maid website, an 11.5 ounce can of grape juice has 180 calories. That's more than the 140 calories in a can of Coke. And what nutrients do children get? 100% of Vitamin C. And that's about it, plus 40 grams of sugar. Compared to Propel (15 calories per 12 ounces, 3 grams of sugar, 15% of Vitamins C and E, 40% of Niacin and B6), I'd rather my kids drink Propel (which also now comes with calcium). Vitaminwater has a few more calories (8 ounces has 55 calories, 13 sugars, 40% Vitamin C, 20% of various B vitamins), but it still seems better than juice. Every pediatrician we've ever known has warned against giving kids, especially older than toddlers, juice. Many parents I know water down juice, and Mott's has just figured this out and will now sell diluted juice that's part water/part juice.
The funniest part of the article was a principal basically saying "jsut put in working cold water fountains." Our kids go to a school where every student has a water bottle and fills it up with water throughout the day, even at lunch. Look Ma, no calories!
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1. Posted by Anthony on September 17, 2007 @ 17:33 | Permalink
I so thought this was going to be a OJ Simpson entry. He could use a good PR person, too.
2. Posted by Michael Risch on September 18, 2007 @ 6:05 | Permalink
I too thought it was about OJ - I was thinking, "really?"
My son just started pre-school, and at snacktime they give him watered down juice. We don't feed him juice at home, so he didn't drink it. Apparently we are the only ones, as there was a hullabaloo among parents (they don't like any child to have something different) but they finally resolved that we can bring a bottle of water and the teacher will put that in his uniform sippy cup.
3. Posted by Jeff Lipshaw on September 18, 2007 @ 6:38 | Permalink
Make it three on the OJ Simpson. I thought I was going to be very clever.
4. Posted by Raffi on September 18, 2007 @ 9:20 | Permalink
Two points about juice. Although it is in fact highly caloric, there is some comfort that it might have emerged from a fruit rather than a vat. Of course, given the wretched juices that are sold, that isn't 100% true, but the idea of giving kids something called "Propel" rather than apple juice strikes me as wrong. Second, sodas are much more likely to be drunk in extremely large quantity than juice. I suppose there might be some kid who drinks three tins of orange juice a day, but there's a reason (probably to do with the combination of carbonation and sugar) that there isn't any juice based "Big Gulp".
5. Posted by Marianna Moss on September 18, 2007 @ 9:53 | Permalink
Christine,
I agree with you wholeheartedly. We do not have any juice in our house, although Piper does get some watered-down juice at daycare. If I had my way, she wouldn't get any juice, but I can't rewrite the daycare rules. At the end of the day, the important issue is not the drink's name, but only its contents. Propel may sound like it's industrial solvent, but it seems that it's healthier than juice. I think the only reason we think that juice is good/healthy for our kids is advertizing. Wouldn't be the first time we got hoodwinked by the marketing.
6. Posted by Matt Bodie on September 18, 2007 @ 11:34 | Permalink
I have a preference for natural over processed. I agree that juice has a lot of sugar calories, and water or milk is better. But I'd still take juice over Propel. Here's a link to the Michael Pollan essay on "food" vs. "nutrients":
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html
7. Posted by dgm on September 18, 2007 @ 12:09 | Permalink
As a general rule of thumb (for myself and kids), calories should come from food, not beverages. I'd prefer my kids get their servings of fruit from, well, the actual fruit.
I'm appalled at the number of kids who pack Gatorade in their lunches; I think that's as bad as soda. If they need electrolyte replacement during the school day, send them with Pedialyte.
8. Posted by Matt Bodie on September 18, 2007 @ 12:15 | Permalink
I have a preference for natural over processed. I agree that juice has a lot of sugar calories, and water or milk is better. But I'd still take juice over Propel. Here's a link to the Michael Pollan essay on "food" vs. "nutrients":
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html
9. Posted by Fred Tung on September 18, 2007 @ 17:42 | Permalink
Uh . . . here at Emory, Coke has this big endowment effect (a big effect on our endowment). Let's go easy on Coke, okay? And no endorsing Pepsi on the Glom!
Seriously, when I first came to Emory and was told you can't get Pepsi on campus (and hardly at all in Atlanta), I thought they were kidding. They ain't kidding.
10. Posted by Jake on September 18, 2007 @ 21:13 | Permalink
Christine asks: "If all this whoopla is about preventing obesity in children, then shouldn't we really be worried about calories?"
Not really. Just kick the kids off the computer and out of the house to enjoy the great outdoors. Calorie intake as a dilemma will go away.
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