Thursday, May 31, 2012

My Vote For the World's Least Healthy Beverage


Grape juice.

Now I know some of you might be thinking but what about sugared soda or energy drinks or even alcoholic energy drinks?

Sure, all of those are horrible - but none of those are marketed in the name of health, and that's what puts grape juice at the top of my least healthy beverage pyramid.
"2 servings of fruit in every glass?"
I know I'm a broken record on grape juice, but who cares if it's got vitamin C in it? Would you drink nearly a quarter of a cup of maple syrup a day if it had 100% of your Vitamin C requirements? Probably not....yet it takes nearly a full quarter cup of maple syrup to reach the calories and 10 teaspoons of sugar provided by every cup of grape juice.

(BTW - Grape juice has double the calories and sugar of other juices. Given the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Pediatric Society both recommend limiting juice to 1/2 a cup for small kids and 1 cup for large ones, I'm guessing they'd recommend limiting grape juice to 1/4 of a cup for wee ones, and 1/2 for everyone else)