Mar 30 2006
Sunny D is Factory Food
People who think my interest in food is due to my being some kind of gourmet are mistaken. While it is true that I appreciate good quality ingredients prepared with skill and attention (and love), what I’m really interested in is how to bring good, healthy eating out of the ivory towers and into my (our) everyday life.
That doesn’t mean we must sup on exotic meats in rarefied sauces on a daily basis. It just means that we should be aware of what we are eating, so we can differentiate between healthy food and crap food. For example, I tend to shun so-called “light” versions of foods, because in order to achieve “lightness” the food factory usually compensates by adding some other crap that they hope will fly below our “lightness” radar, like loads of extra salt, artificial thickeners, chemical sweeteners, and saturated fats.
In general, my theme is that the less “factory food” you eat, the better off you will be. Factory food is stuff made from food but processed and packaged until it doesn’t resemble anything that you would ever make from scratch. It tends to emphasize salt, grease, or sugar (or a combination of those) as its primary source of “flavour.”
But not all factory food is terrible stuff that you find in low-end grocery stores. Many of the finer products on your grocer’s shelves qualify once you look at the ingredients. Often this stuff poses as healthy food by being brightly-colored, or by having some aspect of fruit or vegetables in it. A classic case is “Sunny D,” the “fruit drink” formerly known as “Sunny Delight.”
Sunny D has been available in the U.S. in one incarnation or other since 1964. Its popularity has grown immensely, and in 1998 it was launched in the U.K. in the midst of a huge, £10 million promotional campaign. It quickly became the third most popular soft drink there.
Recently, however, sales have started to drop. Apparently, people in the U.K. are actually starting to pay attention to what they eat. They’ve noticed that Sunny D, which presents itself as a juice-like drink, is composed of only 15% juice. The rest is water, sugar, modified food starches, various gums for artificial thickening, and even vegetable oil.
Things came to a head when a girl in the U.K. turned orange after drinking a huge quantity of the stuff. That was due more to the excessive quantity of her intake than to a problem with the drink (the color change was a result of an overdose of carotene — which would have happened even if it had been organic carrot juice straight from Grandma’s garden). But the incident raised a red flag in the public consciousness, particularly as it coincided with an unfortunate ad campaign that featured a snowman turning orange after drinking Sunny D.
U.K. sales are so bad that some grocery chains have taken the product off the shelves.
As for this side of the pond, Sunny D is countering our burgeoning awareness of crappy factory food by launching a huge national marketing campaign in the U.S.
Don’t fall for it. If you want a fruity drink, drink some fruit juice! If you find it too acidic, dilute it with some sparkling mineral water, or make your own blends (the classic orange-pineapple will never lose its appeal). But please, for the sake of your health and well being, join me in shunning factory-made processed imitations of real food.
19 Comments on “Sunny D is Factory Food”
I had one of these moments of truth when I was with one of my friends at his workplace. Him working the night shift at a gas station, I used to go there every now and then to talk and keep him company. Once, I was eating a big bag of chips (Doritos to be more precise) and was eating them happily and merrily by the handsful when I looked on the other side of the bag, and saw the nutrition facts … mmm mmm, yeah, ok, 300 or so cals, ok … mmm mmm *munch munch* for 17 chips. (don’t remember the exact numbers but it was high, and for a small number of chips)
I looked at my hand and counted. I did a quick math of what was in the bag … and that’s the last bag of chips I ever bought for myself, the only ones I’m eating are at my friends houses or I buy some when we have a party. I digressed last year once for the first time by buying a bag. There ought to be a limit and to me, it’s chips and soft drinks. No more of these at home.
You’ll notice that Sunny D doesn’t sell itself as a juice, but as a drink, or in this case as a delight.
By law, there needs to be a certain concentration of “real” fruit juice for it to have that label. So, they’re not really being sneaky, just underhanded (if that makes sense).
Michel#1, yeah, the chips thing is scary. An it’s not just the fat and calories — with “flavored” chips there tends to be all kinds of non-food junk thrown in there too.
Michel#2, you’re right. In fact, a juice has to be 100% juice in order to call itself “juice.” Add a touch of sugar or other ingredient and you have to call it “drink” or somesuch (hence “cranberry cocktail,” which is full of added sugar).
However, Sunny D “positions” itself as a juice, or at least a juice-based drink. But it’s only 15% juice. That means it is 85% other stuff. EIGHTY FIVE PERCENT other stuff! Including vegetable oil!
Not that vegetable oil is harmful. In fact, in small quantities it is essential. But what the Hell is vegetable oil doing in a soft drink?
oh, i’ve joined you already! where it becomes harder is with the Kid, whom i haven’t started “raising” until he was four and already had bad references or insufficient exposure to many different foods. we’re making progress (i tricked him into liking spinach by telling him he’d had it plenty of times before and it worked), but it’s very difficult - even though he’s young, we need to re-educate his taste buds. it’s much harder for an adult, i bet, but taking it slow is best, and it works.
the one thing that changed everything for me was starting to go to the market, where buying food becomes not a boring frustrating chore (eh, i love the selection at loblaws, but i feel like cattle going through their aisles and waiting at the register), but a series of pleasant interactions with smiling people who believe in their produce. and after a few weeks, realizing that all of us somehow felt a lot better physically - hmmm you think that might have a little something to do with eating locally-grown organic food? you think?
ever looked at the sugar and salt content of (heinz-style) ketchup? and then at the serving size? in a regular bottle there is something like a cup of sugar! it managed to traumatise my 8-year old who eats just about everything with ketchup (or even ketchup by itself, yuck). only for a short while though:-(
I remember buying Sunny D a few times (maybe 10) when I lived in the states. From looking at it, I thought it was Orange Juice. It was strategically placed in the same aisle as the juices, so it got me. And who had the time to read labels at 18 years old?
However it was the weird taste that turned me away from it.
Many years later one of my health-conscious girlfriends shed some light into the sneakyness of Sunny D. Ever since then it’s become somewhat of a joke.
Whenver we saw a person drinking Sunny D in the states we would go: “Tee-hee, you are drinking crap!” (Same as if we saw somebody eating twinkies - yuck!)
I got to admit that what scares me here in Canada is in the incredible amount of sugar people take. Half of my supermarket grocery section (Maxi) is filled with candy, doghnuts, and cakes. (This is without mentioning the staple of the Canadian diet - the maple syrop)… oh well…
There’s also the issue of Sunny D having a consistency reminiscent of mucus.
When I tried the Atkins diet, it really opened my eyes to much of what processed food is made of. But that was of course more along the lines of all the carbohydrate fillers they put in food. The essence of the diet seemed to say that processed flour and sugar are long-term poisons by spiking insulin far too often. Although I don’t follow it anymore, it has really made me conscience of how many ‘bad’ carbs that are hidden in so many foods. And also to think twice about candy and snacks.
Five Blue: Well, one trick they are using in Japan is very interesting, kid-wise. In Japan, everything has a little bit of sugar in it. Not much, mind you, we’re very far from sugar cones. But there is a tiny weeny little bit of sugar in every meal. No dessert, no sweets, but sugar everywhere. It’s a trick that can be used because kids really like sweet things, no matter… so you can fool them in eating about anything.
As such, I don’t really mind one teaspoon of sugar everywhere, it gives maybe 2 or 3 tablespoonful at the end of a day… as long as you know you aren’t using processed food that already uses this trick. Ever wonder why kids love Kraft Dinner and not your home-made sauce? Yep, sugar. So you add a few pinches, then as he grow to like it, you put less and less until you don’t add any.
And I agree with you on local food that’s organically biologically ….lly grown, I live near Atwater Market and I do enjoy taking my f&v there, and while I mostly shop at my local IGA, when I want to eat good meat, there’s the Boucherie St-Vincent.
the atwater market’s so expensive though. and maisonneuve is so small! i still go to jean-talon, even though it’s far, because i can get everything there.
i understand what you’re saying about sugar, and it sounds like a smart thing to do to ween him off (although every other week his mom packs him lunches of juice boxes and microwaveable meals - the horror!). i plan, when i have a kid of my own, to start right from the start with him or her and not end up with an addicted child…
Sugar is bad in bulk for sure, and refined sugar the work of the devil, but far worse is corn syrup. IANAB but my understanding is that corn syrup metabolizes out to cholesterol in the process of converting to sucrose in the liver, AND doesn’t trigger the insulin response as quickly so you consume more (sells more soft drinks!). So I avoid it as much as I can. Easier here in Quebec than it was in the states…Coke here is made with sugar and not corn syrup and I can’t drink more than one without feeling completely saturated.
Good food for thought!
I was puzzled by the vegetable oil as well, and looked it up - it’s not just oil, it’s *brominated* vegetable oil (aka BVO), and it’s used as an emulsifier in citrus sodas (like Gatorade, Code Red and similar drinks,as well as many “cocktail” fruit punch blends) to prevent the flavour oil compounds from separating in the bottle.
The toxicity of it is down to the bromine, which accumulates in fatty tissues and organs and leaves the body only slowly. (This is why brominated flame retardants in electronics and computers are also a problem.) The full WHO report can be found here.
Even given it’s relative toxicity in concentrated form, it’s been allowed as a food additive since 1977, given that its use is reviewed yearly. In this instance it’s used in relatively small quantities - one ounce per 520 gallons of product - but frankly, do you want to take a chance?
Squeeze some actual (organic) oranges….
Oh god, so I suppose if you’re squeezing non-organic oranges, you’re killing yourself?
It reminds me of the dad character in Peter (Paul?) Theroux’s “The Mosquito Coast” who had the memorable line about hot dogs: “They eat those little cylinders of poison, and then smile, because it tastes so good.”
Nice reality check, Jack. From my point of view it’s all about awareness. Most things in moderation are not particularly harmful. But the trend, in food, is very much towards factory-made food that is far more about industry and manufacturing than it is about nutrition and health.
Heck, I eat Heinz ketchup and stuff like that too. But I’m under no illusion that it’s real food, and I don’t eat much of it. (A bottle of ketchup lasts for at least half a year at chez blork.)
Awareness is half the battle. If you’re at least aware of how crappy factory food is, then you are in a position to moderate how much of it you actually eat, and to take steps towards eating real food whenever you can.
True true true. I wish that in Montreal, with all its great soil (Old Orchard Road was named for a reason), people could do some more growing, and become aware of what a “good” tomato tastes like. Of course, there are lots of groups in town thinking the same thing.
Grocery stores seem to think that a good tomato is big, red, long-lasting, free of blemishes, but tastes like nothing (thought of writing “styrofoam” there for a colourful metaphor, but I ate some of that as a kid, and it tasted pretty bad. Even canned tomatoes are better.)
It’s hard to have “slow food” all the time, unless you’re a super cook, but it’s nice to know what it is, and all about genetic manipulation, and whatever.
What an odd thing to post about. It’s called a “drink,” not a ‘juice’. We drink juice in our home and avoid drinks for what I thought were obvious reasons, but then on occasion we’ll have soda. Some sodas have fruit flavours and y’know, I’ve never been fooled into thinking they were juice either.
I can’t speak for the people that you may have been targetting this post at but this is a non-issue for me. Are the rest of your readers likely to be Sunny D drinkers, and if so, are they the type to not know the difference between a ‘drink’ and ‘juice’?
I can’t stand Sunny D. Good thing too.
I teach my daughter the shopping rules, go around and stay out of the isles. Atwater market and Le Fromagerie is her favorite. We go goo-goo for our fresh tomatos from our little garden, drool over grilled fresh trout, and have fun cooking all afternoon.
Kids follow parents habits, she’s not big on sweets as I am and tells her father to lay off the Coke. I don’t think children are truly attracted to sugar naturally. She feels left out that I don’t buy as much sweets as her friends eat, that I know.
Oh and “Yo Joe!”
this kills me–> if you look at a can of “5 alive”–which is all citrus juice–they say there’s a neglible amount of vitamin c. now: how is it physically possible to make an all-citrus drink with no vitamin c??!!