I know I grew up drinking fruit juice by the gallon, and I suppose in view of this report, it’s miraculous that I was skinny as a rail as a kid – and still have my original teeth. From Katherine Martinko on Treehugger:
Juice, on the other hand, has somehow escaped the unhealthy label. Despite having a sugar content equivalent to that of soda (10 teaspoons per 12-ounce serving), it still enjoys a healthy halo, and thus continues to feature prominently on breakfast tables, in kids’ lunches, and on daycare menus. Particularly for kids, juice is seen as an easy way of getting important vitamins and minerals into their bodies, which may be why the average kid in the U.S. drinks 10 ounces of juice per day — double the amount recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
A trio of paediatricians wants this to change. In an article for the New York Times titled “Seriously, Juice Is Not Healthy“, the three doctors argue that it’s time we stopped pretending that juice is different from other sugary beverages.
One of the biggest concerns is the sugar content, which nobody needs these days, in light of the obesity crisis currently afflicting the United States. Studies have shown that drinking juice prior to a meal actually makes a person hungrier, leading them to overeat.
Juice is not the same as whole fruit because it lacks the fibre that fills a person up. That is why “children who drink juice instead of eating fruit may similarly feel less full and may be more likely to snack throughout the day.” The doctors also expressed concern over juice being a “gateway drink” to other sugary beverages.
I don’t drink much juice these days, fortunately. But I can’t count the number of kids I see running around with juice boxes.
And that’s the indicator of the next fight on the way: the war to be waged by the juice manufacturers on information like the above. Get out the marshmallows as corporate profits become more important than the health of the kids. Sort of like the recent contretemps at the World Health Organization and baby “formula”. The United States came out of that looking like idiots, didn’t they?
