I recently read an article in the New York Times about an organic baby formula Similac puts out. It basically says that while this formula is organic (and thus supposedly better for you), it uses cane sugar instead of other sugars.
Cane sugar is one of the sweetest sugars available. It is a disaccharide, made up of glucose (which your body uses as fuel), and fructose (fruit sugar, which your body converts to glucose to use as fuel). It's the sugar people traditionally put into their baked goods and sweets (though with sugar alternatives, I don't know if everyone still does that). And, of course, because it is so sweet, it is the sugar favored by babies.
So what? You may ask. Well, I believe we develop our tastes from childhood (at least partially). A girl born in the south and raised on collards and boiled peanuts will be more likely to enjoy them than someone born in, say, Washington state. So, if our babies are being fed the sweetest sugar possible from a very very young age, they'll be more likely to crave sugars as they grow, and will be less likely to accept foods that aren't as sweet.
So, these children won't be likely to eat, say, vegetables, which usually aren't very sweet, and will probably fit right into our culture where nearly everything you pull off the shelf has high fructose corn syrup in it.
Of course, high fructose corn syrup isn't very filling, and it matches our sweet teeth, so people tend to eat more foods sweetened with HFCS than with a more traditional sweetener. More sugar means more calories, and more calories typically means more pounds.
As our society becomes more sedentary, these super sweet foods cannot be good for us. They'll contribute to diabetes, even in those without the risk factors (such as excessive weight... yes, underweight people can get diabetes as well).
Maybe now you can see the problem posed by super sweet baby foods (yeah, the jars of baby food aren't all that good either, since they're sweetened as well, which is one of the reasons I will make my own baby food for my children).
So, what's the solution? Formula is typically good for children, especially when the mother's milk does not provide adequate nutrients for the growing child. It has proteins and fat and much more than just milk. So the solution may not be to eliminate these artificial foods from the baby's diet.
Rather, I encourage mothers (both new and not so new) to look to see what is actually in their children's foods. Grinding up fresh fruits and veggies for those semi-solid foods may be a better alternative than the jars of food, even if it takes longer to make. Maybe going organic isn't the solution in the case of baby formula. Maybe making some of your own food, instead of buying those sweetened with HFCS, can help curb our childhood obesity, our adulthood obesity, and our diabetes problems.
And maybe it'll encourage people to be a little more active in their lives as well.
Good info. Well I give my 8 moth old Enfamil Lipil w/ Iron Formula. I tried to put her on Similac when she was born. We tried every single one for the past 2 months and every single variety of Similac made her throw up. When we finally switched to Enfamil, she could hold the milk down. Now I don't know if Enfamil has sugar or sugar cane, but my baby likes to eat Gerber 2nd foods. I just told myself when she gets older, she will barely get to eat anything with sugar because I don't want her bouncing off the walls.
One of the things we do with my niece is water down her juice. She gets a mix of about 3/4 water, 1/4 juice. It's way less sugar, and as an added bonus, she loves water. She usually prefers it to her "juice." Apple juice usually works best because even the reduced sugar kind is overly sweet, so even when it's way watered down, it still kind of just tastes like apple juice.
Can't get her unhooked from chocolate milk though. Someone made the mistake of giving it to her this one time. Now she just walks around saying "chockut mek," holding out an empty sippy cup and looking pathetic. But then we just give her water or regular milk anyway and she drinks it after a couple minutes. :-)
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I too was a young "cockie mook" addict. And now I am an adult chocolate milk addict. It's harder to kick than heroin. I used to wake up in the morning and scream "Cockie mook!...Geggies!...Tote bu'er!...Pie!" I did not get chocolate milk, eggs, toast and butter, and pie for breakfast, but I ordered it every morning. Still do.
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I am also a chocolate milk addict. There are few things I love more than a huge glass of chocolate milk poured over ice. :-)
Toast with butter and nothing else is highly underrated. Especially if you've got good butter. :-) But I can also get chokecherry jam whenever I want so sometimes, plain butter just doesn't cut it. ;-)
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Now I am totally craving some nice, cold "cockie mook." That's the best beverage in the entire world!
(yeah, the jars of baby food aren't all that good either, since they're sweetened as well, which is one of the reasons I will make my own baby food for my children).
Not to mention there's more water in most of those jars than actual food. They also tend to cost more than it would cost to make them at home.
We still have to do formula and breastmilk combination with Aloshua because of his absorption and growing issues, so both he and Aybra are using Neocate (he uses Neocate Junior now since he's *sob* a big boy now). It's elemental and tastes absolutely atrocious (not nearly as sweet as other formulas), though it does contain corn syrup solids. Can't figure out how much though. I think now I'm going to have to email the company and ask. You made me curious!
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but I believe my diabetes is partially caused by my mother giving me the old time sugar filled formula.
I don't know what research has been done in that direction, but I can't say it would surprise me to find that.
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Wow, you make your own baby food. That is awesome! I assume it's nice to be aware of what's going in your baby's mouth.
This was a good blog to put out. I wouldn't have immediately thought that there would be a problem with cane sugar in baby's food/milk, but now I see how it could be. We don't need the next generation of people to be more sugar addicted than the previous ones.
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Well, I don't now, because I'm not around any babies (my youngest sister just turned 10, and I'm still working on the dating thing, so I don't have any kids of my own yet, and since I'm the oldest of my sisters, I don't have any nieces or nephews either).
But I plan to. It's not all that difficult to do. It's mostly cooking the foods so they get tender, then food processing them into a mush that the baby can actually eat. Far, far healthier than the jarred baby foods, and it can help them get an early taste for fruits and veggies that'll last their entire lives :)
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Alot of good infomation. The problem I have is even light stuff and low calorie foods and sweetened with HFCS. I have looked on everything!! It is in almost nearly everything we eat. People will try to eat healthy yet they don't realize why they aren't losing weight. It is because of this stupid corn syrup the government regulated.
But yes I think we are exposing our babies to the worst form of sugar. Fruits and vegs are good alternatives. I am guilty as well of liking choclate milk though...Good blog.
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My mother used to make her own baby food for me, too, but she also put molasses in my formula so I'd drink it (I was a premature baby so I got a disgusting mixture of supplements in my formula, too). Now I can't stand sodas or chocolate milk >.>. I do love chocolate, but a typical bag of M&Ms, for example, will last me for months where it'll only last my mom a night.
I also had a grandmother who was very into the whole "healthy living" and "you are what you eat" thing and ingrained a love of veggies in me at a very early age, which may have contributed to it, too.
Nevertheless, giving your children lots of sugar is BAD. I always kind of shake my head when I see parents getting Cookie Crisp for their kids. What a way to start the day!
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Cereals like Cookie Crisp are definitely not the best choice for your kids to start the day, but it is better than such breakfast foods as donuts (same amount of sugar as 12 cans of soda) or coffee cakes.
And having something to eat for breakfast in the morning is better than nothing at all. Breakfast is truly the most important meal of the day. It restarts your metabolism after your nightly fast, which means your body will use the rest of your food that day more efficiently. And, especially for kids, it kind of wakes up your brain. As a teacher, I could tell the difference between kids who came in who had eaten breakfast and those who didn't. Even if its just some sugary cereal to start the day, kids need a breakfast in order to get them ready to learn and process all that new information!
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I totally agree that something is better than nothing, but I also agree that Cookie Crisp is just terrible! My boss bought some as a treat (they usually do the organic, hardly sweet at all variety of cereal) and I tried it for the first time in years...that crap is sweeter than actual COOKIES! I was shocked. No wonder my mother would never let me have it.
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Haha, yeah. I was never enticed by the "cookies for breakfast" concept. If I really want cookies for breakfast, I think I'll just have regular cookies.
This is kind of getting off topic, but I am constantly on the search for the cereal that stays crunchy the longest in milk. I'm a big fan of Kashi Go Lean Crunch, Kellog's Smart Start - Antioxidant Variety, and Honey Nut Chex.
"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." - Victor Hugo
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Now I go for cereals that I like soggy. Mini Wheats are my favorite.
I do love the Kashi Go Lean Crunch, though. It's really good in yogurt.
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Cheerios have always been my favorite, but I don't mind soggy cereal at all. The Kashi cereals are all delicious, too, I think.
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Breakfast is definitely important and something IS better than nothing for sure. I guess, speaking of being conditioned, I was conditioned that sugar is NOT for breakfast and so the thought of eating something so sugary for breakfast just seems gross to me :P
Still, I also have been conditioned to eat breakfast every day and a day without breakfast is an awful day so if I had to eat something and Cookie Crisp was the only thing in the house, I'd probably eat it.
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Thanks for the information! I honestly never thought to look at baby formula labels. It's funny that we check the labels that we put in our own bodies but just assume that all baby formula is healthy. That's what I thought, anyway.......
It is said,
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