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Lots of products seem to claim that they are as healthy as real fruit. But are they actually as healthy as real fruit? Find out more by clicking on the products in the picture.
The phrase 'juice drink' is often used on products that contain just a little bit of juice, diluted with quite a lot of water. They often have pictures of fruit on the front of the packet, and lots of fruity descriptions to give the product added appeal. However, many cartons of 'juice drink' contain less than 10% real fruit juice - about four or five teaspoons. That means the carton contains over 90% 'other stuff'! The 'other stuff' is mainly water, sugar and additives.
Here's another juice drink. This one contains only 20% juice. That's about 10 teaspoons of juice in 50 teaspoons of drink. What are the other 40 teaspoons made of? Water, sugar and additives! Put your mouse over the picture to see how much water there is. The water is
made to taste like fruit juice with added sugar and flavourings.
Fruit can be used to sell chocolate
Why did the company boast about the fruit? Sweets like this are for little children who probably can't even read! Maybe they hope that writing 'REAL FRUIT' in big letters will appeal to mums, who want their children to eat more fruit. Trouble is, 1% strawberry powder is not very much at all. By adding a tiny bit of fruit, food companies try to make their products have 'mum appeal' so that mothers will buy the product for their child.
Mars says that chocolate is full of heart-friendly chemicals called antioxidants, like those in fruit. What Mars doesn't say is that its bars are also full of heart-UNfriendly fat and tooth-UNfriendly sugar! Watch out for products claiming to be
as good as real fruit. They're trying to borrow fruit's healthy image.
Real fruit tastes good and it does you good!
Everybody says that eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables every day is good for you. Guess what? They're right! A portion of fruit or vegetables is
about the same size as a handful.
Fruit 'flavour' doesn't mean it contains fruit
Look out for the word FLAVOUR. Only if these were described as Raspberry FLAVOURED or Orange FLAVOURED would the flavour need to come from real fruit. The words 'fruit
flavour' mean there's probably very little fruit in the packet. There
might even be none at all!
What happened to the fruit?
The fruit was probably squashed, mashed, boiled, strained, mixed and congealed before finally getting squeezed into shape. This type of processing concentrates the fruit sugars until they become sticky. Fruit sugars in this form are just as bad for your teeth as other types of sugar. When sugar is
locked up in the cells of real fruit, it's far less damaging to teeth
than if you drink it as fruit juice or eat it in fruit sweets.
Click here to download activity sheets on the subject of food labelling.
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How fruity is a fruit juice drink?
Fruit has a healthy image, and is
sometimes added to products to give them a healthy spin. For example, one
chocolate company boasts that these 'strawberry' chocolate sweets contain
'REAL FRUIT'. The ingredients list on the back shows that they contain
only 1% strawberry powder.
This photo is from the Cocoapro website,
Real fruit contains all sorts of good things that you need to
keep your body healthy - 
The best thing
is that fruit also tastes great. And there are so many different kinds
of fruit that you have lots of choice when you eat your way to health.
These packets of Jelly pudding look
nice and fruity but they are really fruit-free zones. Insted of nutritious
fruit, the company uses added colours to give a fruity look, and chemical
Sweets aren't always as fruity as they
make out. This box says that the fruit sweets are made with twice their
weight in fruit. But think about what must have happened to the fruit
to get it into the box.
