Friday, February 27, 2009

Freaky Friday

I think I like this trend...freaky Friday, what could be more fun?

This week though it is not a video. It is an article I came across while reading one of my favorite blogs Vegan Lunch Box . The article is on juice usage in children. You think juice is healthy right?
WRONG

Doctors say juice is no better than soda! Yes, you read that right. Read for yourself they’re both essentially a mixture of water and sugar without fiber.

It makes me laugh to think of all the people I know that are so indignant of others giving their children a glass of soda and insisting they could never do that because juice is just so much healthier.
*snort*
even diluted juice like we do is still just water, sugar and no fiber

and why are we teaching our children from such a young age that they have to have sweet drinks anyway? why not just give them straight water? "oh but my child won't drink water" they will if they haven't been given other sugar filled drinks all their life. Shawn and I were talking about this the other night. We made smoothies and someone made a comment that they weren't sweet enough. It made me realize that we live in a society where we just use so much sugar that we cannot eat anything without it. I told him that if we started to cut it out and retrained our palette that soon our dependance on sugar would decrease. We are going to give it a try.

so what do they suggest? water. eating the fruit instead of drinking the juice. that gives them fiber, no added sugars and no added preservatives.

3 comments:

Sandi said...

All juice does is hydrate and raise blood sugars. I do have to say that it is slightly better than soda in the regards that it is not carbonated (which causes gas), it is not caffinated (which most soda is), and it doesn't have all the acids that soda has. But I see your point, in regards to sugar it is no better. It will give kids the same "sugar high" and then the crash afterwards. It is no wonder that we live in a society of overwieght children. They also have the highest rate of type 2 diabetes than any other generation. Our poor bodies can't keep up with all the sugar we eat.

Tara said...

I see this at my house. My dh refuses to drink water and so I'm the only one that's content if we're out of milk or juice. And I hate that our kids are learning that from him - it's a constant sore spot with us.

Jessica said...

health wise, they are both crap. they are full of empty calories. juice just happens to be the higher out of the two, thus the reason why doctors in this article stated what they did.

I am so glad that I have never been one to give my kids juice. we barely use it. they only get pop when we are out to eat too. You have to love a refrigerator with an ice and water machine in it! My kids love ice water :)