By Elise Jones, blog editor
In my blog post, Poisonous Apple & Grape Juice (originally published on babybites, Dec. 16, 2011) I encouraged parents to take a good look at the juices they were giving their children due to the recent discovery there are high levels of arsenic and lead in most apple juices sold. The post seems to have struck a cord with our community and has been read and shared over 1,000 times since I first published it.
There have been many comments and questions shared on Facebook/Twitter as well as emailed to me. I wanted to share one with you that I have frequently received in the hopes it will help you further understand the original post:
Q: I limit my daughter’s intake of juice anyway but I was curious if anyone knows how the berry berry fruitables stack up. I know there is still apple and grape juice in the mixture but wondered about the percentage.
My response: I know in the Consumer Reports study, CR mainly examined apple and grape juices and not mixed juices.
Here are the ingredients from the Adam & Eve website for the Fruitables Berry Berry juice drink:
INGREDIENTS:
JUICE FROM APPLE, BEET, SWEET POTATO, PURPLE CARROT, CARROT, STRAWBERRY, RASPBERRY, AND TOMATO JUICE CONCENTRATES (FILTERED WATER AND JUICE CONCENTRATES), FILTERED WATER, NATURAL FLAVORS, CITRIC ACID, VEGETABLE COLOR, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, VITAMIN E ACETATE.
When ingredients are listed on a product, the one used the most is listed first and then on down the line. There is no way to know how much of one ingredient is specifically in the product as the manufacturers don’t generally release that information (it’s their trade secret). Since apple is listed first, you can gather it is the majority of the makeup of this product.
Here is what the Consumer Reports study found about apple juices and mentions Apple & Eve products in it but not specifically the Fruitables drinks:
“As for lead, about one fourth of all juice samples had levels at or above the 5-ppb limit for bottled water. The top lead level for apple juice was 13.6 ppb; for grape juice, 15.9 ppb.
The following brands had at least one sample of apple juice that exceeded 10 ppb: Apple & Eve, Great Value (Walmart), and Mott’s. For grape juice, at least one sample from Walgreens and Welch’s exceeded that threshold. And these brands had one or more samples of apple juice that exceeded 5 ppb of lead: America’s Choice (A&P), Gerber, Gold Emblem (CVS), Great Value, Joe’s Kids (Trader Joe’s), Minute Maid, Seneca, and Walgreens. At least one sample of grape juice exceeding 5 ppb of lead came from Gold Emblem, Walgreens, and Welch’s. Our findings provide a spot check of a number of local juice aisles, but they can’t be used to draw general conclusions about arsenic or lead levels in any particular brand. Even within a single tested brand, levels of arsenic and lead sometimes varied widely. To see our complete test results for all 88 samples, download this PDF.”
Again, this study mainly focused on pure apple and grape juices, not mixed juices. So you will have to make your best guess as to how much arsenic is in your specific juice of choice.
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I also received a great follow-up email from a reader who shared with me an op-ed that was published on the New York Times three days after my post, Back to the Start (published on Feb. 17). My post on Mommybites’ Green Parenting column was about the Chipotle commercial that ran during the Grammy Awards Show and how it clearly and beautifully illustrated the current issue with farming factories.
The op-ed in the New York Times was written by the president of the Missouri Farm Bureau and was titled “Don’t Presume to Know a Pig’s Mind.” In the piece, the author states “scrapping our most efficient farming systems for political correctness is not the way to a plentiful and affordable food supply. ”
Here is my response to the author’s opinion piece:
The op-ed is an interesting and somewhat correct view point. But as with any supply and demand equation, if the demand goes up and supply diminishes two things happen: the item gets expensive and other manufacturers get in on the creation of said item; and then the supply increases and the scale reaches an equilibrium. Case and point: cars, computers, oil, diamonds, wheat, corn, etc.
There is still not a good reason in my mind to inject chemicals into food and create dirty food farms. I’m willing to pay more (and eat less- such a novel concept these days) for quality food.
So readers, what do you think about these two topics and my responses? Would you add anything to them to either confirm or refute my stance?
Green Parenting is published every Friday. If you have a story idea or any questions, please email elise@mommybites.com.
The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog contributor’s. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Writers may have conflicts of interest, and their opinions are their own.