On Instagram, RD Working For Welch's Implies That Drinking Welch's Grape Juice Won't Raise Your Blood Sugar (By @DylanMacKayPhD)

Today's guest post comes from Dylan MacKay. Dylan is a nutritional biochemist who has type 1 diabetes and when I saw RD Marie Spano's Instagram post, I knew he would have both personal and professional thoughts to share and so I invited him to do so.

I don’t know what it is with grapes but they always seem to be raisin my ire…

I mean as a person with type 1 diabetes, a PhD in Human Nutritional Science, and who does diabetes research and occasionally clinical trials looking at glucose response, maybe I’m not the one to talk about this, but I just can’t not.

Recently a Welch’s (*cough* big grape juice) "nutrition advisor" posted the above nutrition translation travesty on Instagram.

This really surprised me because when I have low blood sugar I often drink grape juice, How am I still alive? I mean I can honestly say there are times grape juice may have saved my life (by raising my blood sugar). Yet you could potentially look at this Instagram post and fairly think

“drinking 100% juice made from polyphenol-rich fruit juice does not raise your blood sugar”

unlike apparently that bad candy or pop that raises your blood sugar.

That would be of course 100% wrong.

Polyphenols are not magic sugar blockers, otherwise we would be using them to treat diabetes and you would get serious gastrointestinal upset from eating berries and grapes. I feel like you don’t even really need to be an RD to see this messaging is bad (Seriously, Welch’s advisors, how much do you get paid for your credibility?). Especially on a social media platform, where someone might not scroll to the end of the associated comment and look at the “reference” provided.

Speaking of the reference used for this knowledge translation crime, it is for a review article called Impact of Dietary Polyphenols on Carbohydrate Metabolism and having reviewed it I can say it does not support the claim in that post. Most of the article talks about animal or cell culture results that show polyphenols may impact glucose digestion or absorption, but there's nothing in the article showing it stops it. It even concludes that

“To confirm the implications of polyphenol consumption for prevention of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and eventually type 2 diabetes, human trials with well-defined diets, controlled study designs and clinically relevant endpoints… are needed.”

The closest thing in the article supporting the Instagram post is

“The shape of the plasma glucose curve with reduced concentrations in the early phase and a slightly elevated concentration in the later phase indicates delayed response due to berry consumption”

about a study done with 12 healthy participants looking at berry puree (rich in polyphenols). The polyphenols (or something else in the berries) changed the timing of the blood sugar elevation.

I suppose the Welch’s RD nutrition advisor might say

“well actually Dylan, changing the shape of the blood sugar elevation means it doesn’t actually raise blood sugar like candy”

and we could get into a long argument of how you define “like”. When people are arguing over minutia or semantics big food companies have won.

This type of nutrition misinformation advertising works because ultimately it is designed to ruin peoples’ trust in nutritional science and nutrition experts (especially RDs). If consumers are confused and can’t trust anything in nutrition, they are ripe for the next trend or fad or advertising claim. That is a good thing for companies, but a bad thing for people.

If you like grape juice, drink it, I sometimes do when I have low blood sugar (I have chugged maple syrup for that too so…), but know that grape juice will raise your blood sugar, and liquid calories, like those found from the 9 teaspoons of sugar per glass of grape juice, are an easy way to go over on your energy intake. Most of us are trying to avoid excess energy intake, so for that, in my opinion, you can’t beat water.

Dylan MacKay PhD is a nutritional biochemist and an Assistant Professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. He is also a Clinical Trialist at the George and Fay Yee Center for Healthcare Innovation. Dylan has a special interest in human clinical trials related to lifestyle and diabetes. He is originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland where he started his graduate studies at Memorial University.

Coca-Cola's New Simply Smoothie Strawberry Banana Contains 11.5 Teaspoons Of Sugar Per Cup

I should probably be putting "smoothie" in sneer quotes when discussing this new product.

The ingredients in this "smoothie" aren't simply water, strawberries, and bananas but rather they're strawberries, bananas, and apple, grape, and lemon juices.

Perhaps that's why in an 11.5oz serving of it, there's 44g of sugar (responsible for 85% of its 200 calories). For reference, drop for drop, actual Coca-Cola contains 15% less sugar and 33% fewer calories.

But of course no one confuses Coca-Cola for a healthy beverage.

But Coca-Cola (Simply's parent company) sure hopes you confuse this "smoothie" with one given they've festooned it with front of package shout outs that explicitly suggest it's good for you.

I'm also confused by its nutrition.

The ingredients report that 11.5oz of banana strawberry "smoothie" provides 1g of fibre - that's less than what would be found in just a 5th of a small banana, and yet to eat 44g of sugar from small bananas, you'd have to consume 18x that amount. And the 35% Vitamin C? You'd get that from just 2 strawberries.

Unless it's you doing your own blending (and even then, remember it's not likely to be as filling and you'll be able to consume a great deal more) eat your fruit, don't drink it.

Once Again I'll Ask, Where The Hell Is Canada's New Food Guide?

This post was first published back in June. Since then, still no Food Guide, as well as the real possibility that not releasing the Guide influenced the New Brunswick provincial election, and just this past week, an incredible dive into juice, food politics, and our as yet unpublished guide. I really can't wrap my head around why it's not out yet beyond politics. That's not something this country should be proud of.

In case you missed the news, New Brunswick recently banned the sale of chocolate milk and juice in their schools.

It's a welcome move, and one that will be undoubtedly be adopted nation wide following the long delayed publication of Canada's next Food Guide.

Canada's Food Guide, last published in 2007, inexplicably and explicitly, reports that chocolate milk is a healthy dairy choice (that it also suggests dairy is such a magical food that it requires it's own Food Guide category is a whole other kettle of inexplicability). Or maybe it isn't that inexplicable in that on the then Food Guide's 12 member advisory committee was Sydney Massey, the Nutrition Education Manager and Spokesperson for the BC Dairy Foundation, where their homepage at the time featured the campaign,

"Don't tell Mom, but Chocolate Milk is good for you"

The next one, won't.

I know this in part because back in 2014, Dr. Hasan Hutchinson, the Director General of Health Canada's Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion (the office in charge of the Food Guide), agreed with me during our then debate, that chocolate milk shouldn't be deemed a health food by our Food Guide,

"One thing we're doing right now is doing a reassessment of all of those things and certainly me personally, I agree with Yoni that it (chocolate milk) should not be there either"

And in May 2015 he was quoted by the CMAJ on juice stating,

"You won’t be seeing that anymore … and there’ll be a fair number of new materials coming out in the next few months."

I also know this because even McDonald's appreciates that chocolate milk, with more calories and sugar drop per drop than Coca-Cola, shouldn't be routinely offered to children.

So here's my first question.

If, in 2007, Canada's Food Guide had explained that chocolate milk is to milk what apple pie is to apples, and that it should be considered a treat rather than a health food, and that no, juice is not the same as fruit, do you think we'd be seeing these actual responses and comments posted on Facebook and on the CBC article in response to the news out of New Brunswick?

"How the hell can juice be bad for you I doubt orange and apple and cranberry juice is bad for your health CFDA would have ban the stuff decades ago"

"It is crazy and stupid. especially since the school officials are comparing the natural sugars found In the cocoa that makes it chocolate to the artificially added high fructose corn syrup used to sweeten coca cola."

"Ugh get a life people! Chocolate milk is some parents only option to get their kids to drink milk. And as far as juices they sell apple and orange at school so are they now telling us apple and OJ juices are bad??"

"I agree, pop and juice fine. Chocolate milk is filled with nutrients."

Because the thing is, though no one shops with Canada's Food Guide in hand, its recommendations do permeate national consciousness. And more to the point of this post, they inform school food policies. Once the new Food Guide is published, and assuming it explicitly recommends limiting sugar sweetened beverages and juice (and it will), all provinces will undoubtedly soon fall in line with New Brunswick (unless of course the Conservatives, as they promised prior to their election, repeal the ban).

And here's the most pertinent question. It's been 5 years since Dr. Hutchinson agreed chocolate milk should be off the Food Guide's menu, and 3.5 years since he went on record stating that juice's days are also numbered, so how is it possible that we're still waiting?

Dear @ChronicleHerald, Publishing Industry Talking Points As "Commentary" Does A Disservice To Your Readers

More than one person shared this "Commentary" published last week by The Chronicle Herald entitled,

"Keep Canadian juice on the table for better health"

It was written by Pierre Turner and it asserted that 100% fruit juice is a source of essential nutrients and phytochemicals and that by extension juice is

"essential in helping to treat or reverse some of our leading causes of death, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and hypertension."

The commentary goes on to talk about how juice helps combat food insecurity, that it's nutritionally equivalent to fruit, and that the food guide is going to explicitly encourage people to consume moderate amounts of ice-cream and bacon, but to avoid juice, and that these recommendations in turn will worsen Canada's rates of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.

Now as ridiculous as the piece is, it's not particularly surprising given the author is vice-president Quality, Sustainability, Research and Development at Lassonde Industries. It even says so at the end of the piece.

Want to take just one guess as to what Lassonde Industries produces?

So did The Chronicle Herald, who reports in their Vision statement that they're proud of their integrity, get paid for this juice industry advertorial disguised as opinion, and was this just an example of their promise to,

"innovate to remain a relevant and competitive channel for advertisers to reach their consumers."?

Or was this just poor judgement?

Either way, publishing industry talking points as if they're thoughtful commentary does a disservice to readers, who instead should be taught to eat their fruit, not drink it, and also that the World Health Organization, Canada's Heart and Stroke Foundation, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and more all recommend explicitly limiting fruit juice's consumption. Yes, if people followed these recommendations it would be decidedly bad for the juice industry, but why that's a concern of The Chronicle Herald (unless they're being paid), is beyond me.

Juice is NOT a F@*#ing Fruit Part II

As has been my tradition, in December I repost old favourites from years gone by. This year am looking back to 2014 and this piece on juice.

Juice is an incredibly frustrating beverage. Despite packing the same caloric and sugary punch of Coca-Cola, unlike sugared soda, juice's undeserved health halo regularly leads to its provision, consumption (and often over consumption) in the name of nutrition - especially to and by our children.

And kids really shouldn't be drinking the stuff, or at the very least, not in the name of health.

The Canadian Pediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics both recommend that juice be capped for kids at half a cup daily. And make no mistake, the capping isn't because juice is so damn good for the kids that we don't want them to drink too much of it, but rather because every glass contains 5 teaspoons of sugar (or more) and calories which won't be compensated for with decreased portions at their next meals.

The World Health Organization also considers juice to be nothing more than a sugar delivery vehicle and in their recent draft guidelines on sugar consumption specifically call out juice as a source of undesirable free sugars.

Yet there's this piece that came across my Newswire just last week. It was a press release put out by Coca-Cola (makers of Minute Maid) and Breakfast Club of Canada and it featured Teresa Piruzza, MPP for Windsor West and Minister of Children and Youth Services launching the newest Ontario Breakfast Club, which judging from the press photo up above involves the indoctrination of children into believing that fruit juice is a healthy part of their breakfast and the provision of juice boxes (containing more juice than our experts' daily recommended maximum), festooned with cartoon characters that in turn might further increase a child's consumption and desire for same.

Can you imagine a similar scene with the Minister of Children and Youth Services grinning and handing out Vitamin C fortified soda, in cartoon covered cans, to children in the name of breakfast?

According to the press release,

"Breakfast Club of Canada supports healthy breakfast programs at 1,266 schools, supporting nearly 130,000 children and serves close to 21 million breakfasts every year and that Minute Maid® has partnered with Breakfast Club of Canada since 2003, donating Minute Maid® juices to support programs across Canada."

Breakfast I'm all for, but marketing sugar water to children and washing it in BS "corporate social responsibility", food insecurity, and health, is incredibly misguided, and incredibly sad.

(And if you're looking for Juice is NOT a F@*#ing Fruit Part I click here)

No Coke and Pepsi, Adding Fibre and Pro-Biotics Doesn't Make Liquid Candy Healthy

As the liquid candy business falters, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are desperately turning to the addition of pro-biotics and fibre to their juices and sodas in a bid to sustain their sales.

First up is Coca-Cola Plus. Launched in Japan each bottle of the diet soda beverage has 5gr of added insoluble fibre. According to its official press release,

"Drinking one Coca-Cola Plus per day with food will help suppress fat absorption and help moderate the levels of triglycerides in the blood after eating"

And a statement to that effect will apparently be placed directly on the front of the bottle.

Next up is PepsiCo's juice arm's offering of Tropicana Essentials Probiotics, which along with its 7.25 teaspoons of sugar per glass (which incidentally is more sugar per glass than Pepsi), is reported to pack,

"more than 1 billion active probiotics in each serving"

What will they do for you?

According to PepsiCo they will,

"work to promote gut health"

Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose.

[Sorry, earlier version had Coca-Cola, not PepsiCo making Tropicana]

No, Juice Is Not, "Really Close To Fruit"

If I had to rank juice companies by how blatantly their packaging tried to convince consumers that vitamin-fortified sugar water was healthful, Oasis would come out on top by a mile. So I'm not at all surprised to learn that it's Oasis' packaging that now includes the statement,

"Really Close To Fruit"

Nor was I surprised by this new product that I spotted at my local convenience store.

It's candy gussied up by Welch's to infer that it's fruit.

With pictures of grapes across the front, it reports it's "Family Farmer Owned", that it's "Grape", that it's "bursting with fruit flavour", and "made with real fruit juice".

They're 50% sugar by weight.

While I doubt there'll be parents out there who confuse these with actual grapes, I bet the majority will think they're a "better for you" product than Twizzler's Nibs. Yet if you compared the two you'd discover they're pretty much the same, with the Welch's candy actually containing 2.5% more sugar gram for gram than the Nibs.

But at least they're calling them licorice and not "fruit chews" or something of that sort.

Until juice is explicitly removed from national dietary guidelines as being a fruit equivalent we'll continue to see this sort of health-washing.

Oh, and coming down the pipes perhaps to a McDonald's near you?

Minute Maid Slushies - which apparently were debuted at a McDonald's funded children's festival.

No word yet on how much sugar these new faux-healthy Slushies are packing.

[h/t to Christine T. for sharing the "Really Close To Fruit" photo with me on Twitter]

Remember This The Next Time You Hear Soda Consumption's Going Down

Last week saw the release of yet another important initiative from Canada's Heart and Stroke Foundation - this one on sugary drinks.

Now the news often talks about how soda consumption is going down (-27% according to this report), and while it was slightly heartening to learn that juice consumption has gone down by 10%, neither are going down in a vacuum.

During that same time frame, other liquid candy sources have picked up some major steam

• Energy drinks +638%
• Sweetened coffees +579%
• Flavoured water +527%
• Drinkable yogurt +283%
• Sweetened teas +36%
• Flavoured milk +21%
• Sports drinks +4%

Also shocking were the daily per capita consumption amounts - especially of the kids:

• Children 0 – 8 years consumed 326ml/d
• Youth 9 – 18 years consumed 578ml/d
• Young adults 19 – 30 years consumed 504 ml/d
• Adults 31+ years consumed 259ml/d

And you have to remember that per capita is an average per person that includes those of us whose kids consume virtually none. And when considering the incredible rise in energy drink consumption also remember that Red Bull was the 4th most commonly advertised food on the top 10 websites favoured by 2-11 year old children.

Looking to my experiences in our office's Ministry of Health funded program that works with parents of children whose weights are a concern, I can tell you that it's not at all uncommon for kids to be consuming 300 or more calories of chocolate milk and juice a day. In most of these cases, the kids were doing so consequent to their parents great intentions - intentions that have been poisoned by a national Food Guide that includes chocolate milk as a healthy dairy choice, and juice as a fruit and vegetable equivalent this despite chocolate milk being to milk what apple pies are to apples, and juice being just a flat soda pop alternative with a smattering of vitamins.

Liquid calories, especially sugary ones, are perhaps healthier diets' lowest hanging fruits. That Canada is still dithering on them, especially those that are marketed to kids as being healthy by way of the Food Guide and school milk programs, is quite unfortunate.

New Brunswick Says Slush Puppies Provide "Maximum Nutritional Value"

Need proof that 5-10 years is too long to wait for improved nutrition guidelines from Health Canada?

That photo up above is from New Brunswick's George Street Middle School's cafeteria's Facebook page. They're highlighting the fact that they've recently installed this Slush Puppie machine for their students.

Slush Puppies, for those who aren't clear, are non-carbonated, vitamin fortified, juice concentrates, poured over ice.

Each glass of Slush Puppie Plus contains 7 teaspoons of free sugars - more than the World Health Organization and Canada's Heart and Stroke Foundation recommends as a total daily limit for kids.

This led one concerned parent to write to George Street Middle School's cafeteria to express her concern.

The response she received in reply?

It spelled out that the vitamin fortified liquid candy machine that the school installed was not only not cause for concern, but rather was a drink that was defined by New Brunswick's Healthier Foods and Nutrition in Public Schools Policy 711 as being of Maximum Nutritional Value which

"indicates foods that are a good or excellent source of important nutrients and are low in fat, sugar and/or salt. These foods are considered nutrient dense relative to the energy they provide. These foods should be offered on a daily basis and comprise the majority of foods/beverages served in schools."

And it's not just a New Brunswick inanity by the way. When writing this blog post I noticed that Slush Puppie Plus is making the rounds in US schools as well where it is reported to meet the “Alliance for a Healthier Generation” Guidelines for 100% Juice in Elementary, Middle and High Schools.

And no, just in case you were wondering, this isn't The Onion.

No Mott's, Watered Down Juice Doesn't Help Kids #StartStrong

Mott's for Tots is watered down juice. As in they took juice and added water and then sold it to you at the same price as the non-watered down stuff.

Watered down juice is not "love".

Watered down juice won't help your kids "#startstrong"

Watered down juice shouldn't share or exceed the cost of regular.

Juice is not a healthful beverage.

Treat juice like soda pop and give it to your kids in the smallest amounts you can get away with (aim for less than half a cup a day).



[Thanks to Patti for sending my way]

Welch's Study Finds Grape Juice Makes You Smarter #NotTheOnion

Oh, and a better driver.

Really.

The findings were part of a study published ahead of print in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The funded at least in part by Welch's study, Concord grape juice, cognitive function, and driving performance: 1 12-wk, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover trial in mothers of preteen children, started with 25 participants randomly assigned to consume 1.5 daily cups of Concord grape juice (containing 233 calories and more than a quarter cup of sugar (13.5 tsp)), or an energy and sugar matched non-concord grape juice "placebo" for 12 weeks followed by a cross-over of treatment arms.

19 participants described as "working mothers" completed the battery of cognitive tests, and 11 sufficiently completed driving simulations. Outcome measures for cognitive function included the number of correctly identified sequences, false positive responses, reaction times, a grooved pegboard assessment of manual dexterity (fill the holes with the pegs), and "Tower of Hanoi" testing. Outcome measures for driving performance included a 25 minute virtual driving scenario.

Now up front I should disclose I'm neither a statistician nor an expert in cognitive function testing so please consider that with my assessment. Ultimately, within the battery of tests (and there were plenty), a few in fact were found to show a statistically significant improvement in favour of the grape juice - most with p values of 0.05. Of course, do enough tests, and chance alone will dictate one will turn out to have a p value of 0.05. Putting that aside, I also can't help but question the significance, even if true, of for instance completing a psychomotor skill test in 60.4s vs. 63.2s (P < 0.05), or as it would pertain to driving, a "car following" accuracy of 0.96 vs 0.97 (P = 0.05).

Sounds like the authors may have wondered the same given their use of the word "subtle" in describing the improvements and their proviso when considering the battery of tests that were run,

"it is important to acknowledge that there were no effects on most cognitive outcomes".

Not surprisingly, that proviso did not stop Welch's from putting out a press release that opened with,

"New research by the University of Leeds in the UK suggests that drinking Concord grape juice daily can benefit certain aspects of memory and everyday tasks in people with stressful lifestyles – specifically working mothers".

So there you have it - the 13.5 teaspoons a day of sugar way to just barely, sort of, in a very small number of very specific tests, as revealed by an incredibly small sample size, make yourself smarter and a better driver.

[And to consider too - did these, acknowledged even by the authors to be meagre, findings really warrant publication in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a journal with an impact factor (nearly 7) higher than roughly 95% of all other scientific journals, and one that was selected by the Special Libraries Association as one of the top 100 most influential journals in Biology and Medicine over the last 100 years? And/or does this just speak to impact factors' lack of utility?]

Celebrity Pediatrician Dr. Jim Sears Gives His Endorsement to Diluted Sugar Water

Dr. Jim Sears is the co-host of The Doctors. He's a licensed paediatrician. And given that he's quoted in Mott's press release about their "Pediatrician Approved" watered down apple juice, I'm guessing he is the actual, singular, pediatrician who approved it.

Now reading the Mott's For Tots press release you might think that this product is aimed at parents who are already diluting fruit juice with water so as to try to minimize the massive sugar bolus that is fruit juice. The press release suggests that those parents who worry about their kids getting the full strength stuff when their kids are out at birthday parties and such, can just pack a box of this stuff which, rather than containing 7 teaspoons of sugar per glass, contains 3.75 teaspoons per glass.

But let me ask you, what do you think the big blue "Pediatrician Approved" stamp is more likely to do? Lead parents to think that watered down juice is a healthful choice (clearly that's the way it's being advertised by Mott's), one that they can, or even should, continue serving their children on a regular basis, or instead lead parents to understand, as the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation would recommend, that juice should be considered a treat that should be actively minimized in a child's diet, and where a single glass of even this diluted stuff meets/exceeds the American Heart Association's total daily recommended free sugar kid maximum?

Dr. Sears seems a savvy MD - both in terms of business and marketing, and maybe even in terms of medicine. Consequently, I have to imagine he understands the well-established "Health Halo" effect of front-of-package labelling which lead people to consume (or parents to provide) more of products whose package fronts infer health. That Sears has chosen to ignore that by "approving" the "Pediatrician Approved" labelling of watered down (and I bet marked up) juice, speaks more about his business acumen, than his clinical judgement.

[Thanks to friend and RD Andy Bellatti for highlighting this product on Twitter]

Minute Maid Orange Juice and a Masterclass in Leanwashing

Today I've got another amazing video for you. It's from Minute Maid and truly, every parent needs to watch it.

Parent need to watch it not because it has anything to do with Minute Maid orange juice, a product that can be thought of as flat Coca-Cola with a tiny smattering of vitamins (as drop for drop Minute Maid and Coca Cola have virtually identical sugar and calorie profiles), no, parents need to watch it because it's genuinely great.

While juice is totally fine to give your kids as a treat (as far as how often and how much I'd recommend giving them no more juice than you would soda pop), giving it to them regularly wouldn't be a practice I'd think is fairly describable as the campaign's #doinggood, nor is juice something I'd describe as being full of goodness. Full of sugar maybe, but goodness not so much.



Oh, and if you think I'm kidding about their push of juice as "goodness", take 30 more seconds and watch the campaign's companion video:

Sugar Reduced Juice May Well Be Less Bad, But it Sure Ain't Good

From the there's a world of difference between "healthier" and "less bad" comes SunRype's new Frullo line of partially sweetened with Stevia juices.

Now, instead of spoiling your palate with a glass of intensely sweet sugar water containing 5 teaspoons of sugar a glass you can spoil it with a glass of intensely sweet sugar water with 3 teaspoons of sugar a glass.

So yes, drop for drop it's less bad, but less bad is definitely not the same as good - especially if drinking the less bad stuff leads you to believe that because it's less bad you can have it more often, or pour more of it.

Fruit can only be eaten. Juice is not fruit.

Bizarre Fail from Multiple Canadian Public Health Agencies

Thanks to a fellow Canadian MD for sharing this staggeringly horrible piece of public health advice that she found on a cafeteria table Toronto's St. Michael's hospital.

According to the directive,

"Choose 100% fruit juice. Otherwise you may be drinking mostly sugar and water!"

Perhaps someone from the Ontario Public Health Association, The Canadian Cancer Society, The Heart and Stroke Foundation, or Toronto Public Health would like to weigh in and explain what exactly people who drink 100% fruit juice will be consuming beyond mostly sugar and water? Honestly, I'd really love to know as I would have thought that contributing to the health halo of juice would not be in public health's best interest.

(Updates: An earlier version of this post had wrongly identified Eat Smart! as a Dietitians of Canada initiative rather than an OPHA initiative.

The Canadian Cancer Society has reached out to let me know that this is an old card that's somehow still floating around and that they no longer participate in the program and encourage reduced juice consumption)

Juice is NOT a F@*#ing Fruit Part II

Juice is an incredibly frustrating beverage. Despite packing the same caloric and sugary punch of Coca-Cola, unlike sugared soda, juice's undeserved health halo regularly leads to its provision, consumption (and often over consumption) in the name of nutrition - especially to and by our children.

And kids really shouldn't be drinking the stuff, or at the very least, not in the name of health.

The Canadian Pediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics both recommend that juice be capped for kids at half a cup daily. And make no mistake, the capping isn't because juice is so damn good for the kids that we don't want them to drink too much of it, but rather because every glass contains 5 teaspoons of sugar (or more) and calories which won't be compensated for with decreased portions at their next meals.

The World Health Organization also considers juice to be nothing more than a sugar delivery vehicle and in their recent draft guidelines on sugar consumption specifically call out juice as a source of undesirable free sugars.

Yet there's this piece that came across my Newswire just last week. It was a press release put out by Coca-Cola (makers of Minute Maid) and Breakfast Club of Canada and it featured Teresa Piruzza, MPP for Windsor West and Minister of Children and Youth Services launching the newest Ontario Breakfast Club, which judging from the press photo up above involves the indoctrination of children into believing that fruit juice is a healthy part of their breakfast and the provision of juice boxes (containing more juice than our experts' daily recommended maximum), festooned with cartoon characters that in turn might further increase a child's consumption and desire for same.

Can you imagine a similar scene with the Minister of Children and Youth Services grinning and handing out Vitamin C fortified soda, in cartoon covered cans, to children in the name of breakfast?

According to the press release,

"Breakfast Club of Canada supports healthy breakfast programs at 1,266 schools, supporting nearly 130,000 children and serves close to 21 million breakfasts every year and that Minute Maid® has partnered with Breakfast Club of Canada since 2003, donating Minute Maid® juices to support programs across Canada."

Breakfast I'm all for, but marketing sugar to children and washing it in BS "corporate social responsibility", food insecurity, and health is both incredibly misguided, and incredibly sad.

(And if you're looking for Juice is NOT a F@*#ing Fruit Part I click here)

Canadian Diabetes Association Health-Washes 7.25tsp of Sugar Per Glass!

Though I can't say I was shocked, I can say I was horrified when while visiting my parents this past weekend I opened their fridge only to find the Canadian Diabetes Association's (CDA) logo emblazoned on the side of an already insanely health-washed bottle of Lassonde's Oasis "Cranberry Antioxia" (and no, "antioxia" is not a typo).

Like all such beverages Oasis Cranberry Antioxia is basically sugar water. The first ingredient is water. The second, third, fourth, and fifth, for all intents and purposes, are sugar in that they're "fruit juice concentrates" because when you concentrate a juice, you're left with a heaping pile of sugar, which in the case of Oasis Cranberry Antioxia amounts to 7.25 teaspoons of sugar per glass.

While 7.25tsp of sugar a glass is a bad plan for anyone, and even a smidge more than you'd get in an equivalently sized glass of Coca-Cola, it'd be an especially poor choice for a diabetic.

And yet, there's the CDA's logo on the bottle.

And why's it there?

While I'm only guessing, it would seem it's there because the CDA thinks money is more important than integrity or health as the fine print just above the horrifically ironic inclusion of their logo on a glass of sugar water reports that Lassonde's Oasis is a "proud supporter" of the CDA.

And given Lassonde's Oasis product repertoire I think it's totally fitting for them to give money to the CDA, but at the cost of this sugary co-branding I would have hoped that the incredibly minute amount of wisdom required to see these as ill gotten gains, would be possessed by someone over at the CDA.

Guess I'd have been wrong.

Badvertising: SunRype Fruit Plus Veggies Plus Fibre!

Sigh.

I was alerted to the existence of this product by an RD who "liked" it on Facebook.

According to its internet copy, it is full of "extra healthy goodness", and no doubt, its front-of-package screams extra healthy (along with the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check for added punch).

Wanna know what the actual ingredients scream?

Sugar water.

Sugar water with 2 lonely grams of fibre added to each glass' 6.75 teaspoons of sugar to be exact, and a health halo that's no doubt duping consumers into believing that they or their kids' consumption of this sugar water is a fair replacement for consuming actual fruits and vegetables.

If only there were such shortcuts.

Badvertising: Tropicana Trop50 Watered Down Stevia'd Orange Beverage

Short and sweet.

Wanna know what has 100% less sugar and calories than the leading Trop50?

Water.

Sugar water with vitamins, even watered down sugar water with vitamins, is still sugar water with vitamins (and is most assuredly not a fruit).

Drink your water.

Eat your fruit.

Juice is NOT a F@*#$*&g Fruit!

In case you're not aware, Canada's official Food Guide formally recognizes half a cup of juice as a fruit equivalent. This of course despite both the Canadian and American Pediatric Societies putting a half cup maximum on juice consumption in young children and a full cup for everyone else.

Not surprisingly  juice manufacturers hone right in on the Food Guide's recommendations and use them as a means to market their products to parents like that seen on the advertisement for grape juice up above. And don't forget too, children are taught the Food Guide as gospel in grade school and it serves as the backbone of any institutional food program (including daycares and preschools).

So are Canadian children drinking too much juice?

Good god yes.

A recent study published in Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism set out to determine Canadian fruit and vegetable consumption.

Their findings?

The average Canadian child between the ages of 2 and 8 is consuming 50% more than their recommended juice maximums. But that's not the whole story. Some kids are chugging tons of the stuff with the 75th percentile of 2-3 year olds drinking 2.5x as much which means 25% of Canadian preschoolers are drinking even more than that!

Juice is sugar water with vitamins. It has drop per drop the same amount of sugar as soda pop and in some cases more (like that grape juice which has double the sugar of Coca-Cola - 10 staggering teaspoons a glass). Liquid calories don't satiate, and they don't pack the fibre and phytonutrients of actual fruit.

So do you think the Food Guide's inclusion of juice as a fruit, or to put it differently the Food Guide's failure to admonish against juice consumption might have something to do with its consumption among Canadian preschoolers?

I sure do. And while it's not true causal proof, looking to Australia, a country where their Food Guide explicitly discourages juice consumption and sets the same half cup maximum as the Canadian and American Pediatric societies, my read of this report has their average 2-3 year olds drinking only a third of a cup of juice a day.

Bottom line?

Our Food Guide stinks and what it says does matter.