"sunnyd" news and stories

America: the land of the free... and the fat. In the nation's more-is-more eating culture, three in five Americans are officially considered overweight -- and kids are no exception, one in three of whom reportedly eats fast food on a daily basis. But waistline-watchdog MSNBC has culled a list of "20 Worst Kids' Foods in America," to shed light upon some particularly fattening kids'-meal culprits.

Categories range from "worst homestyle meal" (Boston Market's Kids' Meat Loaf with Sweet Potato Casserole and Cornbread, which packs a whopping 890 calories into a tiny TV dinner), to "worst beverage" (the super-saccharine SunnyD Smooth Style, which boosts 60 grams of sugar into one measly cup -- triple that of a cup of Tropicana), to the "worst kids' meal in America": Uno Chicago Grill's Kid's Combo with French Fries, a monochromatic carb-fest cramming kids with cheese sticks, chicken nuggets and fries, a monster of a meal weighing in at 1,250 calories and 2,850 milligrams sodium.

It's no wonder that 16 percent of today's youth, aged 6 to 19, is overweight or obese with the gut bombs like those listed in the regular meal rotations, according to the report. Shockingly, "today's children may turn out to be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will actually be shorter than that of their parents" because of obesity-related health problems, Michael Pollan writes in "The Omnivore's Dilemma."

What do you think is to blame for the rise of childhood obesity -- is it fair to blame fast-food providers or the parents?

[Via MSNBC]

Maybe people wouldn't be so outraged about Sunny D if i didn't actually look like orange juice. As it is now, British consumers are upset because the UK version of the beverage has recently been "re-invented" yet still contains 42 grams of sugar per 500 ml bottle (roughly 16 ounces), according to the Daily Mail. I believe that's about the same as Coca Cola. Sure enough, if you check out the Sunny D UK site, you'll see plenty of hype for their new formula. Personally, I don't see what all the aggravation is about. It's a soft drink like any other. It just happens to look a little more wholesome than, say, grape soda. I guess that whole fish-kill incident didn't help Sunny D's reputation though.

Over 2,000 gallons of Sunny D concentrate leaked from a UK factory into a nearby waterway Wednesday, killing dozens of fish, according to the Daily Mail. The juice, which was deemed substandard, had been sent to an underground tank where it was to await proper disposal. The tank was cracked, apparently, and sent approximately six tons of juice into a tributary of the River Parrett (right) in Bridgwater, Somerset. The spill was deemed a category one incident, the most serious rating issued by the government's Environment Agency. A category one incident can entail "persistent and extensive effects on [water] quality," "major damage to the ecosystem," and "serious impact upon man," according to the EA.

[Photo: SWNS]