what is it about Fruitshoot???

[3andnomore]

Now I know Sunny D is one of the worst things you can give to your child, and I know fruitshoot aint the perfect alternative (to water of freshly squeezed)...but am rather intrigued (sp?) about this whole fruit shoot hatred thing, lol...please...what is so seriously bad about them?
Like I saidm I don't tned to feed them to my Kids but they have had them!

well my kids have fruit shoots, i mean how else can i get fruit into them apart from the fruit toothpaste

I think you can buy fruit lollies, can't you?

yes they will eat fruit lollies and home made fruit juice slush things, the nearest DS gets to veg is veg oil

is a fuit shoot ribena - do people let their children drink ribena these days ?(live in USA - fruitshoot free zone)

I suppose it is similar to Ribena....but owuld not know as I don't drink either, lol!

There is no doubt that milk or water must be the "best" things for lo's to drink.
However,life isn't that black and white andthe odd treat really won't do much long term damage.
Interestingly,Sunny D at least has 15% juice and no artificial colours or flavours or sweeteners in their full sugar version.

Who's dcs' drink ribena? There is LOADS of sugar in that!

Funnily enough, i also wondered why fruit shoots were so hated on mums net...now i know. I think mine has had 1 before but dont give it to him as a regular drink. Will i be arrested by the fruit shoot police?

Call the cops!!!!

lol

sodium benzoate is on the dirty dozen list so avoid it

After Speedymammas comment on another thread about Aspartame (artificial sweetener used in loads of products) - how its the one thing she really avoids I googled it on the computer to find just how bad it is.

It is purported to be linked to brain cancers, has some sort of connection to formaldehyde etc etc.

So now, all non-sugar drinks, squashes, yoghurts are out for me and mine. I'd rather my children, and the rest of us here, ate and drank a little sugar, as in the non 'diet' stuff, than loads of this dangerous stuff.

I just wonder how it can be allowed to be added to products!?!?!?

Hmmm, I'm not convinced aspartame is as scary as some say. There was a big thread on this, and frankly, all the science we could find says aspartame is ok (except for people with a specific disorder). Yes, there's a study where rats got cancer. Firstly, they were eating mind-boggling quantities of aspartame ... mind-boggling quantities of pretty much anything will give you cancer. Second, they got the cancer via a mechanism that doesn't exist in humans.

In our family, we tend to avoid it, because we tend to avoid all highly processed foods, but I don't actually think aspartame is actually dangerous.

All the anti-aspartame sites that people found were quite ... well ... tinfoil-hat-oriented, which somewhat dilutes their convincingness, iyswim.

You may be right NQC but I avoid it for my DS on the basis that he is 5. It wasn't around in as many foods when I was five - so I haven't had as much exposure. But I want to avoid my son having cumulative exposure so I avoid as much as possible.

What REALLY bugs me is when you find artificial sweeteners in medicines/vitamins. WHY? Is the amount of sugar in one 5m spoonful of medicine going going to affect my child's teeth as much as artificial crap? I don't think so!

I don't really have the inclination to look into the long term effects of aspartame etc...

But, I trust my fellow mumsnetters and it makes good sense (even if purely from a financial pov) to not give FruitShoots to DS regularly. When he asks he can have one if he hasn't had one in the last few weeks. He doesn't bounce off the walls afterwards tho...

The colourings in medicine worry me more - I've seen at least one mumsnetter on here convinced her child was allergic to an antibiotic, when of course the colourings and flavourings were no doubt a more likely culprit.

Why oh why do "the powers that be" think we need colourings in medicine???? Who bloody cares what colour it is FGS?!

I remember when DS was about 3 and was on antibs and I rally really struggled to get him to take them as they were that awful sickly synthetic banana flavour - yuck.

My kids bounce off the walls with fuit shoots too (saying that, it doesnt take much to send them loopy!) I assume Sunny D would do the same but I've nevee allowed them to have it.

Has anyone tried those "innocent smoothies"? expensive but pretty good stuff, especially as a breakfast drink.

can I just say one thing

just cos its natural, just cos it occurs in the body, just cos it can, technically, be broken down in the Krebs cycle or whatever does not make it nice or a good thing.

Corn syrup is natural. Yet its heavily implicated in obesity and type 2 diabetes. Other natural, but not really very nice things, include tobacco, benzene, carbon monoxide and sodium laurylth sulphate. Meanwhile, arnica does not actually grow on trees in tablet form and even organic or biodynamic farming is a wholly unnatrual invention, a product of industrialisation really.

(also of course everything is natural. Those "coal tar derivates" and things extracted from oil do come ultimately from ancient forests and elderly squashed shellfish)

Everything is processed. The natural/artificial distinction is not a very useful one, IMO.

And my god I do not give my kids froot shoots, btw.

Fillyjonk, I'm assuming you mean everything in the Fruitshoot, right? Not everything everything? In which case, yeah, what you said.

Speedymama, in what quantities is Sodium Benzoate found in cranberries, greengages etc? What quantities of Sodium Benzoate can be "found" in a Fruit Shoot? Would be interesting to compare.

Have to say, that I agree with NQC etc that I have huge misgivings about giving me DD highly processed goods. Although I am perhaps fortunate that DD drinks mostly water and always has done (aside from milk). She likes fruit juice too, but I give her the "proper natural" stuff and often dilute that with water.

My issue with Fruit Shoots (aside from the fact that when my DD had one once at a party she was bouncing off the walls too), is that they pertain to be something they are not and are of no real benefit nutritionally to the child, and are really quite expensive. The jury is still out for me as to whether they are harmful - but, the fact that they have so many kids running around like loons after drinking one tells me that they arent that fantastic.

It would have been better to say "everything is artificial" really, actually. Thats more what I meant. I just don't think that "natural" vs "chemical" (eh? chemicals aren't natural?) is an especially good way to work out whether something is good for you or not.

yes.

and is sodium benzonate not in cranberries cos we put it there? Its a preservative. Think it might be a pesticide also?

What is often more helpful IMO is to think "now, is there a cheap product being hyped to kids to ensure a massive markup here?"

Or just look at the label. If it says "Kids" or "Children's" on it, its probably not very good for you.

am feeling ranty today. I can't go to the meet up and I have to study and am peed off.

Are the Tropicana Go drinks any better? Thread

NQC....I am with you there...now, not saying that aspartame is great, and yes I rather avoid it, but I doubt it is as bad as made up!
There was big hoohaa over this in America...i.e. people getting MS like symptoms because of "OVERUSE" of Aspartame...but then...they seem to tend to drink diet coke etc...by the buckets...and have asparttame in everything, etc...so....maybe if you overuse it so much....maybe that is the problem...or maybe it was actually the coke part in the diet coke that caused the problems, not the aspartame!

Aspartame breaks down to formaldehyde (toxic) and methanol (the poisonous alcohol) after indigestion . Whether this is in quantities the body can cope with I don't know, but seems likely as long as dosage is quite small.

I still have it sometimes, and my kids do, too.