Be An Informed Consumer

PediaSure supposedly can help fill nutritional gaps in children who are picky eaters.  The  website claims "#1 Pediatrician Recommended Brand" and "complete balanced nutrition."  The first 3 ingredients?  Water, sugar, corn maltodextrin.  Give me a break.  Go here for the rest of the ingredients, which also include health-detrimental, omega-6 heavy, inflammation-inducing, oxidative stress-raising safflower and corn oil.  The minerals and vitamins that are supposed to supplement your child's health are all in there, too.  How is this different than giving them the industrially processed food picky eaters love (which is also loaded with sugar, corn, and seed oils) and supplementing with a gummy one-a-day vitamin?

Have you seen the commercial where a mother says, "you are what you eat" as her friends' kids appear on the soccer field as french fries and doughnuts?  Why isn't her child shaped as sugar and vegetable oil?  What pediatricians are recommending this drink?


Reading nutrition labels can be tricky business, and many items on the ingredients list are unrecognizable.  As everyone probably knows, ingredients are listed in ascending order of weight. But one example of a tricky situation is when there are multiple kinds of sugar in a single product - corn syrup, sucrose, etc, etc.  Sugar might be far down in the ingredients list, but when there are multiple kinds, they can add up to a significant portion of what's in the food.  I've heard some rumors about new nutrition labels that will put ingredients into categories, so that you know how much of a product is actually "sugar" by lumping them all together.  For now, here is a great list of other names for sugar of which you might not be aware.