The Best Stuff On Earth?

It's now been a month since the Fed Up challenge to give up sugar for 10 days kicked off on May 12. As I've written before, I wasn't perfect at eliminating all the sugar in my diet but I did cut way back. And though the challenge is over, I'm continuing to monitor how much sugar I'm eating and keeping the amount as low as possible. And yes, I'm still making my own tomato sauce!



Because sugar is on my mind I occasionally do some random label-checking at the supermarket, even on items I'm not going to buy, just to see how much added sugar is really out there. Today's detective work was on a bottle of Snapple "Naturally Flavored Fruit Punch."  Here's what was on the front label:

Juice Blend
Juice Drink
All Natural
Made from the Best Stuff on Earth

There's also a nice message on the back. It's written in first person although it's not clear who, exactly, is speaking. An elf in the juice factory perhaps? Anyway, here's what it says:

"Have you read that chart over there? Read it, I'll wait. Did you notice? NO artificial flavors. NO preservatives. Nothing like that in this bottle. Just real ingredients, which is why we say, Made from the best stuff on earth."

Got that? It's made from the best stuff on earth. What does the ingredient list say? Filtered water, followed by sugar, followed by some fruit juice concentrate. And what does the nutrition chart say? 47 grams of sugar per bottle, which is considered to be one serving. By comparison, a bag of regular M&Ms, with 30 grams of sugar, is almost a health food. Well, not exactly but it's better than Snapple.

The fact that the Snapple people are getting away with calling this colored sugar water the best stuff on earth, without getting laughed out of the grocery store, makes me both incredulous and volcanically pissed off. This is what we're up against in the fight to get healthy. Fed Up? You bet.