What's wrong with Robinsons squash for children ??

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, my friend came around with her two girls for a play date with my daughter. Her girls are about the same age, 3 and 5. I offered the girls some juce and they all said yes please. I said to my friend as I got out the bottles, which flavour do they like?
It was Robinsons sugar free juice, she said "Oh, it's o.k, they'll have water". I then said "they did ask for juice" and she said "to be honest, I never give them Robinsons at home as it's really bad for them, she said it's got a lot of additives.
I never knew this, you'd think you'd be o.k with such a well known brand.
What do you think? should I get different squash? and if so, what is the best brand?

my ds2 will drink juice/water but i make the juice very weak

I just water down orange juice. It's yum!

Both dd's drink Robinson's sqash, although very dilute but I initially wasn't very happy that we had to go down this route.

Both dd's were BF until nearly 2, dd1 would not drink anything, even once I had stopped feeding her. On a good day, she would have 1-2 oz of liquid only. Some days, nothing would pass her lips.

My gp and hv said to try anything as we had concerns for her health. When I introduced squash, the 1st day she drank two full cups, something she had never done before.

She still doesn't drink a lot now so always have to be careful, especially when it is hot.

The fact that she will drink now means more to me than worrying about what she is drinking.

After all, I remember being given squash that was pretty fluorescent as a child and I don't think it has done me that much harm!

I give my dc Hi Juice Squash (and sometimes juice and sometimes water and sometimes milk). But they would not have been allowed it in their bottles or sippy cups. I would never give them a drink containing aspartame but I know they will have them at other people's houses and parties.

I would never give my toddler squash of any description. It is either organic milk or juice, or just plain water.

In my day (aged parent), no one I knew ever had squash or fruit flavoured drinks - it was well watered down apple juice, water or milk, even long after they started school.

If caught short while out and about, they'd have a carton of Ribena or similar, but I'd consider having 'squash' in the house as tantamount to having sweets in the cupboard.

I don't understand why anyone would introduce a chemical concoction into a tiny child's diet.

If i went to a friends house and she offered ds coca-cola, I'd say no, so on that basis I don't really see anything wrong with her refusing something she doesn't want her children to have. As long as she didn't make comments on how you shouldn't give it to your children, nothing wrong at all.
My ds drinks squash, we call it jusice because it's easier for him to say and although I allow my ds to have a number of things while out that he wouldn't have at home, if I felt strongly about any ammount of squash, chocolate, biscuits etc, I would say no, especially to a friend a wouldn't expect to be thought rude.

OurLady, you obviously are lucky and never had a child who would refuse to drink anything.

I wasn't keen to introduce anything other than water or milk, but when you are faced with a child who's health is suffering because they aren't drinking any liquid, then ideals tend to go out of the window.

Her favourite drink is now milk, which brings its own problems, but ime 2 cups of dilute squash per day is better than her becoming ill due to no fluid intake at all.

I have sweets in the cupboard.

In a tin where dd can help herself. She has been such a fussy eater that I have been known to appluad her trying a new sweet! She helps herself to maybe 2 jellybabies a fortnight.

Flappy - you seem perfectly happy with your dd's squash, but if you wanted to try just for the sake of trying, orange juice from concentate with a load of water does taste quite like squash. More options you have the better I say. Cheap as chips too

thanks treedelivery, will try diluting fresh orange juice, might just help with the side effects of drinking too much milk!

dd2 is so different, she'll happily drink water, fresh fruit juice - vv occasionally and squash but refuses to drink milk.

Absolutely agree with SoupDragon. Juice is juice, squash is squash. I'd probably be a bit more diplomatic than your friend, but I'd still politely refuse. Artificial sweeteners are really something kids (and adults) can do without imo.

Actually, I don't see anything wrong with sweets in the cupboard - chocolate and sugar are ok in moderation, but personally I'd still veer clear of anything with psychotic colours or artificial sweeteners. Don't jelly babies have natural flavours now?

Squash is grim generally, is not juice.

Robinsons are to blame for the dreaded FRUIT SHOOT and their marketing is very dodgy, I had to complain to ASA about it in the past:

www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/TF_ADJ_42604.htm

Additives are really bad for kids (and everyone) whereas sugar is at least natural. Ideally, kids shouldn't have any additives and not much sugar. I hate all the 'no sugar' labelling because it misleads people into thinking it's healthier but the crap they put in to replace sugar is unnatural and far worse for health long-term.

Perhaps the woman wasn't meaning to be rude - you did keep asking her why she wanted her DCs to have water and why they couldn't have squash, so maybe she then blurted it out a bit bluntly? Obviously, we don't know what tone of voice she took. You can't expect her to know that you call squash 'juice', so it's totally reasonable for her to change her mind if she thinks you're offering something you're not.

Bamboostalks - Aspartame is definitely NOT the better of 2 evils. Aspartame is banned in many countries and there's a lot of respected medical studies out there which say a helluva lot of terrifying things about its potential effects. I have food allergies, so I've researched this sort of thing.

i turn down most squash's for my girls, but robinsons is fine (we get the sugar one, not NAS one). most cheaper brands have a lot of artificial colourings in it. or apples. dd1 is allergic to food colourings, dd2 is allergic to apples.

I think Rock juices taste awful myself. Very tart.

As I said Robinson's High Juice is the way forward if you're gonna have squash in the house imo. Tastes much nicer than watered down concentrate.

(Harking back) I can see why people like Flappy, in exceptional circumstances, would be glad to see their child drink almost anything - but that is exceptional - and I don't think I was lucky with my three.

They only really started to drink water with meals after starting school (except for the youngest, who just had to fit in because the others were having it).

I also bf late (2 1/2 for the youngest), and it took a long time for them to take to anything but apple juice.

I was always concerned that they wouldn't drink water, (or milk really until long after they were weaned), and was embarrassed when out with other mums whose kids accepted water.

That aside, I agree with others who point to the unpleasant, unwanted ingredients in squash - and Rock is disgusting.

Mine drank water, milk and fruit juice when they were small.
Now they are 14 and 18 they drink milk, fruit juice and water. And hot chocolate.
Daughter occasionally drinks lilt or lemonade, and the milk is sometimes a milkshake.
If you set them up early with good food and drink choices, sometimes they choose to stick with them in later years.
Agree that I'd rather have children drink 'normal' sugar that sweeteners in low/no sugar choices.

I have a mate who works for Britvic and she reckons that all products containing aspartame will be banned here eventually. There is lots of research about it and they are only continuing to sell it (apparently) because it is not yet illegal.

She has no kids but said if she did then 'no way would I let them drink that sh*t'. So if one of their own employees say that Robinsons' is crap then that's good enough for me.

Rock squash is good. M & S also do a pear and ginger cordial which is quite nice too.

Scorpette:
"Aspartame is banned in many countries and there's a lot of respected medical studies out there which say a helluva lot of terrifying things about its potential effects."

Actually, there aren't! I started a thread about this recently and there is actually no medical evidence whatsoever that says it's bad. Aspartame can cause effects similar to that of MS so for a while people thought it caused MS - it doesn't; as soon as asparatame is stopped then the effects stop. The rise in brain tumours in recent years was also attributed to aspartame being introduced but the rise actually started before aspartame was introduced so that was disproved as well. I don't think you will find any medical evidence against it at all - and I mean proper medical institues, none of the holistic sites and so on.

Although having said that, if you do know of any genuine evidence against it I would be very interested to know, as I have been trying to find out more about this!

we have robinsons hi juice too no aspartame

If aspartame causes symptoms like MS isn't that bad enough? And with that in mind, I really don't think they've studied the long term effects sufficiently.

The colourings in squash have always been suspect too. The tartrazine in them when I was a child sent me nuts. Not sure what colours are in nowadays though - hopefully more natural.

Squash really is junk though unless as some posters have said, their dcs have a real problem with drinks- watered down juice of just straight juice is better and doesn't make kids crave more sugary, sweetened crap.

I totally agree Carmen, I hate squash and never give it to the kids. And yes aspartame causing reactions in some people is obviously a bad thing. All I'm specifically interested in is that there is no medical evidence I can find that say it's bad, yet most people seem to think there is.

That's it then, from now on it'll be watered down fruit juice, or milk. I'm trying to get her to drink water but she's not keen.
If I give squash as a treat, it'll be a compleatly natural one.
We tried Bottle green Junior, oh so orange and mango cordial. It tasted delicious but was soo expencive. (That would have to be an occasional treat!)
Thanks everyone for your advice and info. I'm glad I asked, although feel bad that she's been having it for so long.