Fool Me Once...

Hi everyone, it’s Karen here. I wrote a blog post several months ago about how I bought a snack food that contained MSG (which I have sensitivity to and try to avoid). The lesson was that I failed to read the ingredient list and simply did not suspect it would have MSG in it. You’ve heard the phrase, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Well, I am here to say, “Shame on me!” I got fooled again.

For a couple months now, I have been buying my kids something called Kool-Aid Jammers (I know, not the kinda thing you picture in a dietitian’s fridge!) But the kids seem to like them, the pouches seem fairly small, and a quick glance at the nutrition label told me each pouch had 45 calories. I figured there must be a pretty small amount of juice in the pouch and that is why they are fairly low in calories (like those chip bags that are 1/3 full when you open them!)

Well, just the other day, I was putting a new box of Jammers into the fridge and I happened to take a closer look at the nutrition label. And could not believe what I saw – a serving size was actually two pouches! So now I am skeptical – it was a bit of stretch to think one pouch was only 45 calories, but now I find out two ouches are 45 calories? I immediately suspect there is some kind of artificial sweetener in the ingredient and, lo and behold, I seen sucralose (Splenda) on the list.

I would never have bought the Jammers if I had noticed that. I just don’t love the idea of giving my kids artificial sweeteners as their bodies are developing and I’d rather not have their taste buds get used to them (although they never said anything about the juice tasting weird or different). But that fact that this was not labelled as a lower sugar drink really tricked me. It never occurred to me (like the snack food with MSG) to check for artificial sweeteners. There are usually giveaways on the package (although I did finally notice a small claim on the Jammers that said “75% less sugar than leading regular sodas.”

I share these stories so that hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. And to let you know that even dietitians get fooled from time to time!