Went to the store today.

[conuly]

Naturally, I managed to completely not get the one thing I came expressly to get!

But I did notice a few things on the labels.

First, I picked up maple syrup. I have this recipe for popcorn I want to try.... And I noticed that the fruit syrups next to it said "All Natural!" Well, I like fruit syrup, but when you buy it it usually has corn syrup in it, and I dislike the taste of corn syrup. (Health issues be damned, it just tastes icky! Better than grape juice, though. Ew, grape juice!) So I turned it over to check the ingredients... and the very first one is HFCS! WTH? All natural does NOT mean "primarily high fructose corn syrup". In what world is that okay?

Ugh.

The syrup is in the same aisle as the salad dressing... which advertises on the bottle that it "boosts absorption of vitamins!"

Well, that's true as far as it goes, but then, so does lard, doesn't it? If my concern is boosting vitamin intake, perhaps I'll just use olive oil instead of oil + more corn syrup. It's about as special for "boosting vitamin intake" as gummi bears are for being "no fat!", you know?

At this point I realized I was having a serious conversation with the packaging of products I wasn't even buying, so I just grabbed some chocolate syrup and some goat milk and ran out of there. The nieces never get chocolate milk, so that was a treat - so much so that they were AMAZED. "Wow, it's starting to look like chocolate milk instead of just milk!" and "How did you know how to make that, Connie????" Um... because I was a child once and used to make it all on my own, all the time? I didn't eat as healthy as you do, guys. (And yet, I know my family was a bit snobbish about eating good, homemade meals with real food. I remember having a conversation with my mother about the difference between margarine and butter, and being firmly informed that margarine was only cheaper because it wasn't as good.)

Of course, on that subject, times have changed, I'm rambling (sorry) but it's so funny now, when you think about it, to read a comment (like I saw elsewhere today) about "I can't stand how people have a party for their kids, and give them cake and cookies and then juice. I know, cake for birthdays, but isn't that enough sugar, do they really need juice too?"

And people were agreeing with her! I was sitting there laughing because when I was a kid we never had juice for a special occasion. Even in school, our class parties exclusively had soda. (And I remember, the boys used to mix them all up to be disgusting.) I tell this to the nieces and they can't even fathom it. (Soda *is* a treat, of course, but you know, a can of soda splits up very nicely between three people?)

Comments

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of my conversation with my sister-in-law in which she refused to believe that apple juice is high in sugar (even when no sugar is added to it) even when my dad told her that when my brother (her husband) got apple juice in his baby bottle it rotted his teeth.

[conuly]

For crying out loud, the sugar information is on the side of the bottle!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, the standard childrens' party drink was Kool-Ade. People drank orange juice with breakfast, but otherwise juice of any sort wasn't served much. The juice out of cans in those days was horribly metallic anyway, and Hi-C (the alternative to Kool-Ade) was even worse, ick. Occasionally we'd be served 'punch' that consisted of Hi-C with chunks of fruit floating in it, which was not only disgusting but a Catch-22, because there is no way to drink or eat a cup of such slop neatly.

We got a Coke now and then - they came in bottles then, and cost a dime out of the machine - but my parents mostly regarded sodas as mixers, and didn't buy them for children. We had a soda-water siphon, though, so could drink all the unflavored, unsweetened soda water our hearts desired.

[conuly]

When *I* was a kid we had juice boxes every day with lunch. That was standard - and it may still be outside of the juice is evil! crowd. (I mean, not everybody can think that way, somebody is buying up the soda in this country.)