Artificial Colorings in Pudding and Gelatin Cups
by Shereen Jegtivig
I’m getting into back-school-mode (or maybe my bored kids are getting on my nerves – not sure which) so today I was thinking about things to pack in school lunches, both good things and bad things. Small, one-serving pudding and gelatin cups are popular for school lunches. They’re convenient, properly portioned and they taste good, so kids love them. Of course, most of them are crammed full of artificial colors and other additives your kids don’t need. So what do you do?
One thing you can do is to pack something else for dessert, like dried fruit, but if you want to send pudding or gelatin cups to school with your kids, be sure to do your homework first and find one that contains the least additives. I’ll warn you, it isn’t easy. I looked up coloring free gelatin and pudding cups because more than a few experts believe artificial colorings trigger behavioral problems in kids and it doesn’t seem like a good idea to add artificial colorings to a school lunch, when your kids need to be at their brightest. Of all the varieties of puddings and gelatins, only one has no added colors, the Kraft Mega Cup Chocolate 126 Oz pudding. Read more
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Higest Fiber Kids Cereals
It is well documented that a diet high in dietary fiber is good for you and your family. Many sources discuss getting dietary fiber from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Fiber passes directly through the stomach and small intestines and into the colon, bulking up one’s stool – keeping you regular.
Breakfast cereals can be a good start to the days dietary fiber intake as they generally contain significant levels of fiber in the form of whole grains. This can be the case if you choose the right cereal.
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Kid’s Cereals are packed with Sugar!!
Of the list of 21 cereals taken from the foodessentials database and compared by sugar content, it was astonishing to find the level of sugar contained in most of the products. At the high end of the scale there are products with sugar levels of close to 50 grams per 100 grams and over. Whilst the lower end of the scale (dominated again by Annie’s Cereals – see previous article about cereals and colors) shows values more reasonable at around 6 – 20 grams per 100 grams.
This means that in one 100 gram serving of these high sugar cereals you’d be eating about 50 grams of sugar (50%). Read more
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Color Free Children’s Cereals
From a total list of 21 kids cereals we disappointingly found only 4 products that were color free as listed in the table below. They were all from the Annie’s Cereal range.
Many of the products that did contain ingredients potentially used as colors such colors as Calcium Carbonate, Modified Wheat Starch, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Red 40, Ascorbic Acid, Blue 1 and many others. Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 are both somewhat controversial colors encompassed in a debate as to their potentially harmful effects particularly in relation to behavior modification and ADHD in children. Read more
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- Artificial Colorings in Pudding and Gelatin Cups
