Why do fruit shoots get such a slagging off on MN?

[Gateau]

Not intended to provoke a debate (tho it might!)but they get slagged off quite often on MN, and I'm intrigued to know why.

Because they're marketed as healthy and they're actually full of crap.

And they cost a lot and use excessive amounts of packaging.

oh and they taste disgusting

What sort of crap?
I've never actually seen the back of one or given my child one.

I don't know what fruit shoots are.

My ds has had them at friend's birthday parties although we can't get them where I live and I would never buy them for him - he can drink water, milk or diluted fruit juice. They are not healthy but, as I am not a puritan, I think having one now and again is not going poison anyone's child.

Some MNers are nuts.

Where they are disliked it tends to be because they push the "fruit" angle with their name and packaging but have a much longer list of ingredients (Example: water, blackcurrant juice (5%), cloudy apple juice (4%), citric acid, acidity regulator (trisodium citrate), flavouring, vitamins (C, niacin, pantothenic acid, B6, D, B12), stabiliser (xantham gum), preservatives (E202, E242) sweeteners (aspartame, acesulfame K), colour (anthocyanins)). It's equivalent to paying well over £20 a litre for juice.

I don't think fruit shoots are hated more than other simiarly misleading stuff, but they have become a kind of MN shorthand for this kind of misleadingly-packaged, additive-laden product.

(Why does something sold in and drunk from an opaque bottle need colour added anyway?)

What is in a Fruit Shoot? I looked at the Robinsons website out of curiousity after seeing them get such a slating here and they don't list ingredients.

Oh - and the reason that they provoke debate is because they enable smug middle class parents to make assumptions about their own moral, educational, and general superiority over the "type" of person that feeds their child fruit shoots.
There are much bigger fish to fry in the world, but hey-ho (although I guess people who are militantly anti-fruit shoots would never fry their fish).

for me - because they send DD bouncing off walls, and then into a hideous slump.

aspartame = crap very bad for you.

I don?t like them because hey contain aspartame which I try to avoid and avoid for my children.

Don?t think I?m nuts but never mind, each to their own.

Fruit shoots are basically like already pre-diluted cordial. Ribena for the new generation, if you will...

well, like any cordial with "artificial sweeteners" like aspartame.

www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/dangers.htm

Thanks everyone for explaining.

Agree, bluebutterfly re the smug, middle class parents. I know 'middle class' people who give them to their kids. I mean, so what? They also give them loads of fresh fruit and veg.

I went to a BBQ and another MNetter was there, DP had brought along a 16 pack of fruitshoots for all the kids at the BBQ to drink. I hid them under the table so the other mnetter wouldnt know it was us who brought them along! How Paranoid.

Gateau - it's not smug to not want to give your child artificial sweeteners that have proven links to cancer. I do give my ds juice - I give him the Rocks organic cordial which has fruit juice, water and sugar in. If you're out and about and need to give your child a drink then there are plenty of juices on the market which don't contain the same amount of shite that Fruit Shoots do. Tropicana do one which just has fruit juice and water in, for example.

Thanks for the link bogie; I've printed it off. I've been avoiding aspartame, but have never quite known why!!

Yes aspartame is bad for you, and regular, high consumption is best avoided. But provided a person's general diet is fine, full of nutrients and anti-oxidants, the occasional fruit shoot probably does not mean needing to have one's stomach pumped.

Message withdrawn

Suburban, please don't get the wrong end of the stick. Flip me, someone always gets uppity!!

(waves at wats)
Rocks cordials are meant to be okay I think. I think the fruit shoot thing is meant to be tongue in cheek. Hope so anyway, there are worse things you can do.