Cart Confessions: Fruitables
Today, I’m introducing another new segment on A Better Bag of Groceries: Cart Confessions. I spend a lot of time telling you about the high-scoring things that I buy and feed to my kids. I even boasted that I managed to get my 4-year-old to eat collard greens (true story). While I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job in choosing nutritious foods for my family (NuVal has helped tremendously), there are still some items that make it into my cart that I’m not so proud of. There are some products that I can blame on a surrender to begging and whining, or fear of a meltown in Aisle 5. And then there are some that I can’t even explain.
This week it was Fruitables.
I think it was curiosity that landed this juice box in my cart. As you can see by the label, this is no ordinary fruit juice box. It is a fruit and vegetablejuice box. Whoa!!!!!! My BFF here in my hometown has waxed on about fruit/vegetable juice combinations. Her kids love them. They must be more nutritious, right??? Not! Well, maybe about 3 points higher on the NuVal scale. Three lousy points.
Fruitables Berry Berry score a 23on the NuVal scale (100 is best)
Motts for Tots Apple score a 20
Minute Maid Apple White Grape Juice, 100% Juice score a 14
Juicy Juice Apple scores an 11
Juicy Juice Berry scores a 10
Kool-Aid Jammers score a 2
Why was I even buying juice boxes??? I have no idea. It was Friday. I was feeling a little reckless. I was tired from a long week. No explanation. I’ve pretty much moved my kids to two water beverages as their backpack staples:
Minute Maid Fruit Falls which score a 41
Honest Kids Goodness Grapeness which do not have a NuVal score yet. I think hope they’re going to get a good score. The minute they get scored I will let you know!
One juice box that does very well is Minute Maid Kids Plus. It gets a 70! Unfortunately, neither of my kids like it. It’s orange. I think they are just used to juice boxes being berry or apple. So, I try to stick to the water beverages instead.
My readers who are not (yet) parents might be wondering why juice boxes are necessary in the first place. I remember thinking that I would never buy them. So ecologically irresponsible – and costly! Then, I became a mom and found “juice box” in my everyday vocabulary, along with “Diaper Genie” and “Good Job!” (While driving three of my colleagues out to New York State last week, I told all of them to “Look at the cows!” as we passed a farm. So embarrassing!) Yup, some kind of packaged beverage with a straw attached is in my household to stay. It just won’t be a Fruitable.
Question of the Day?
What is the item that made it into your cart recently that you are least proud of? Come on, be honest!
Posted by: Melissa 9 comments
Posted in: Uncategorized
Tags: Fruitables, Juice
on Jan 25th, 2010 at 10:01 am
They haven’t made their way into my shopping cart yet, but I am hunting down sour cream & onion popchips and as soon as I find them I am loading up
on Jan 25th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Frozen yogurt
on Jan 25th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Candy from the bulk bin! It’s been over a year. I had to do it…
on Jan 25th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Brownie mix! :-/
on Jan 25th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
I ran to the super market down the street to get a few things I was missing to finish up a meal. I wound up with sour cream that wasn’t local hormone free or organic (it was the only option). I used a half cup of it to make the lime cilantro sauce and I can’t bring myself to use the rest of it. I hate wasting it, but I also know what’s in it. I would have never bought it if not for convience. I should have just gone with out it.
on Jan 26th, 2010 at 1:03 am
Several bags of Buy one get one free Lays Potato chips =/
on Jan 26th, 2010 at 6:33 am
Funny! I’m not going to lie, nuts are my weakness at the moment…and while almonds aren’t necessarily a cheat, I know I shouldn’t have picked up that bag in bulk at Whole Foods this week. I cannot be trusted!
on Jan 26th, 2010 at 10:26 am
We don’t have any kids yet, but I do have a husband, who sometimes is my kid:) He loves Capn Crunch. We don’t buy it often, but it was on sale for $1 a box. He begged and I gave in:) At least he eats it for dessert.
on Jan 26th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Well, we are going through a kitchen remodel right now so I can tell you quite a few things that made it into the cart that shouldn’t have! Anything in a snack bag for the next two weeks – things my kids haven’t seen it months! We did get some of the Fruit Falls though and they are a big hit!