Thursday, March 4, 2010

Marie brings up a good point.

A friend and former colleague of mine named Marie sent me a great note in response to my blog. I'd like to take a quick sec to share part of it with you!

"I had some work done on my teeth. I could only eat soft food and my daughter, trying to help me, brought me some baby food. I was horrified at the amount of sugar in baby food. Food companies should be sued for this. Poor babies. I wonder if mothers read labels. I wanted to scream! Needless to say, the baby food is still in my pantry two months later. I do not want to give it to a food bank because I feel it will harm little ones."

Wow she's right! Even among all things food related that cross my mind on a regular basis, since I don't have children, I never really thought about what the youngest of us eat. Marie's baby food experience reminds me of the time I saw a woman walk out of a convenience store with a package of Circus Peanuts. She opened it and gave it to her toddler.

Would you like to know what's in a Circus Peanut? Sugar. Corn syrup. Gelatin. Pectin. Artificial flavor. And colors yellow 6, yellow 5 and red 40. No adult needs that, let alone a toddler!

Sigh. Something's gotta be done. We really do need a food revolution.

4 comments:

  1. Foods targeted to kids are the worst, I swear. The children I watch are absolutely addicted to sugar. They hate me when snack time rolls around because I won't let them indulge in chocolate muffins or Teddy Grahms. Partially, it's because it's junk food. Mostly, it's because I don't feel like dealing with hyper children.

    Random aside: I don't understand why people eat Circus Peanuts. They look creepy and awful. I bet that's how you feel after you eat them.

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  2. Regarding the kids who are sugar addicts, good for you! I wouldn't let them indulge on those things, either. I can only imagine what Halloween will be like at my house if I have kids. I'm a huge Halloween lover, but there's no way my kids are eating candy.

    And I too bet you feel creepy and awful after eating Circus Peanuts! Lol.

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  3. Circus Peanuts just look gross. I don't think I've ever eaten one, ever. They just don't look appetizing.

    And about the baby food: I've heard of some mothers taking it into their own hands and making their own. I think my co-worker's wife did that when her daughter was born and I've heard of a few other couples doing it too. Not a bad idea. At least you know what you are feeding your kids. I don't think this has gone too mainstream, but hopefully in the future more couples will do it if more people make noise about how unhealthy pre-packaged baby food is.

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  4. I agree. In fact, growing up, I never really liked candy unless it was chocolate. Sure, I'd eat the Sweet Tarts or the Tootsie Rolls (which totally do not count as chocolate) or the Pixie Stix or the Fun Dip (I fall into a sugar coma THINKING about Fun Dip.)if given to me, but none of it ever did much for me beyond make me feel awful.

    I think it's a great idea to make your own baby food. I can definitely see me doing that in the event the need to feed a child arises. If we can't trust the food industry to give us food that's good, we definitely can't trust that they'll give our babies good food either.

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