Atlanta – Take a good look at the colorful fruit on the packages of many foods aimed at children. Sometimes that’s all the fruit you’re going to get, according to a nutritional analysis of 37 of the most heavily advertised children’s foods.
More than half of the products contained no fruit at all. Sixteen percent contained minimal amounts, in the form of 2 percent to 10 percent juice, according to a study of ingredient lists released Thursday from the Strategic Alliance for Healthy Foods and Activity Environments, a coalition of California public health and recreation groups.
“Parents may be misled,” says Leslie Mikkelson, a public health nutritionist and managing director of the Prevention Institute, a co-founder of the Strategic Alliance. “I have eaten Dannon yogurt for years and I know in the adult form, there’s pieces of fruit. It would never have occurred to me that in the children’s version, there wouldn’t be fruit.”
So, where is the fruit in yogurts, cereal, juices and other packaged products covered with pictures of glistening strawberries, juicy oranges and apple slices? In just 27 percent of the products, such as the dried apple pieces in Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. Six percent of products consisted of 100 percent fruit juice, such as Juicy Juice and Capri Sun Fruit Waves.
To make sure you’re supplying children with three to four servings of fruit a day, it’s best to buy whole or cut fruit in the produce department, Mikkelson advises. Those fruits and 100 percent fruit juice contain a range of vitamins and minerals.
If you’re buying packaged foods that appear to contain fruit, read the ingredient list to make sure. Ingredients are listed in order by weight, which means a food contains more of the first few products listed.
Where’s the fruit?
A sampling of the study’s findings:
No fruit: Dannon Danimals XL Strawberry Explosion, Fruity Cheerios, Yogurt Go-Gurt Yogurt Strawberry Splash, Fruity Pebbles, Nestlé Nesquik Strawberry Milk.
Minimal fruit: Capri Sun Strawberry Juice Drink, Sunny Delight Fruit Drink, Skittles, Grape Popsicle, Fruit Roll-Ups
Some fruit: Berry Burst Cheerios, Eggo Blueberry Waffles, Quaker Chewy 90 Calorie Baked Apple Granola Bar, Smucker’s Strawberry Jam, Apple Jacks.
