Friday, September 13, 2013

Low-Sugar Juice is Stupid

I've had multiple requests this week for donations to a local food pantry, which is great. But the featured request of the month is "low sugar juice boxes". I can't bring myself to donate anything because of this absurdity.

What is low-sugar juice?



I would think normal people would put these in that category:

Juicy Juice 100% juice “no sugar added”: 26g/8oz
Apple and Eve “1/3 less sugar”: 22g/8oz (Made with vegetable juice)

Let's compare to the evil drinks:

Hi-C Fruit Drink: 28g/8oz
Coke: 27g/8oz

Or we could (OMG!) poison them with chemicals and give them Splenda-sweetened drinks or (OMG even more!) diet soda.

Seriously? Can we just call a spade a fucking spade? Juice IS sugar. Deal with it. Argue that juice is fine, and serve juice. Argue that sugar is bad, and don’t. But don’t pretend like a “low-sugar” name makes things any better.

If you are worried about adequate nutrition in your population, give them 100% juice drinks. If you worried about obesity (probably a bigger deal for poor North Carolina), give them water or something with an artificial sweetener. 

There are plenty of reasons to argue for and against the juice box, and it's fine to want to get organic things (though I believe unnecessary). But you don't get to plop down "low sugar" and make things healthy. I'm not the only one who thinks juice and smoothies are as bad as other sugary drinks.

Even your organic, no-sugar added, hipster juice boxes are still just fucking sugar.

2 comments:

  1. Ash,
    You just need to get with the program. If we can 'brand' something and indicate that somehow putting less of something will cost more then that is what we need to recommend. The bottom line is profit and the scientists working for the manufactures know exactly what the accountants demand.
    And I am in complete agreement with you on the "spade" problem. That would solve many ills we face today.
    Just out of curiosity, the f word, , , do you need a break????

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  2. I am trying to reduce my use of the f-word in daily speech (protecting the kids, LOL). So it seeps out in my writing. :-)

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