WASHINGTON — Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is accustomed to tackling big issues, like war and the balance of world power. But recently he has been extolling the health virtues of the diminutive cranberry, particularly for urinary health.
Senator Scott Brown has also taken up the cranberry cause, holding up photos of himself deep in the bogs of Massachusetts, sharing proudly that he sprinkles the dried fruit on his morning cereal.
Comments
******Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is accustomed to tackling big issues, like war and the balance of world power.*********We get it---you want him to be Secretary of State. Apparently we are going to be inundated with John Kerry stories. OH JOY!!!!!!!!! TO THE STORY-----*****The issue arises because the extreme tartness of cranberries requires a large amount of sugar to make the juice drinks marketable. Dieticians at the School for Public Health at Harvard University say it takes 12 TEASPOONS for a 12-OUNCE bottle. That is two more teaspoons than what is in a can of regular Coke. Some other juices require no extra sugar. It may be made in Massachusetts but THAT IS A LOT OF SUGAR.
This comment has been removed.
How come the Harvard dieticians weren't smart enough to sugget that there alternatives to sugar for use as a sweetner, like sucrose maybe? Looks to me like another bunch of academic busybodies trying to get their bite of the human behavior modification cranberry.
And why should this industry be exempt? The issue is obesity in children, a very important one. If they want to keep their sugary drinks in schools, well then, reduce the sugar content. Nobody needs as much corn syrup as we're pouring into the nation's children.
This comment has been removed.
This comment has been removed.
This comment has been removed.
Have you ever seen a fat cranberry?
This is about an issue of healthy beverage choice in SCHOOLS. Why can't we allow our schools & parents to perform their primary function here to the benefit of everyone: EDUCATE our children about healthy and responsible choices. Knee-jerk LEGISLATION is for the intellectually-lazy ... and evidently a part of Massachusetts' DNA
At our house we mix 100% cranberry juice with other fruit juices, not sugar. When we make Thanksgiving cranberry sauce we use stevia as a sweetener. In fact tart fruits such as cranberries and lemons (and rhubarb) are great applications for stevia, since it has a bit of aftertaste that they disguise. We also, very sadly, stopped walking our dogs at the local cranberry bog. It is a known center for cancer dogs. We value our local crops. However, the cranberry industry urgently needs to clean up its act.
Very true. If companies like Pepsi hope to make inroads with healthy fruit drinks and stevia, they have a potential winner here. Cranberry juice sweetened with stevia.
I like cranberry juice sweetened with other juice. It makes a good combo and is still 100% juice. Would that also be banned? At home we water it down but I have no problem with my kids drinking a limited amount of real juice.
Boatwrote -- I think you missed the point. It's about drinks sweetened with sugar and it's equivalents, like high fructose corn syrup. It's not a about non-nutritive sweeteners like sucrolose, saccharin, aspartame and the like.
Kids are not adults. They have to watched over by parents, and for several hours a day, by their schools. Should we teach kids about the harm of using drugs, but then allow them to use drugs because the kids have been "educated"?