This weekend I ran the 10Km Oasis Zoo run again after being on a two year hiatus from such events due to injury (an accident, not burnout this time) and then travel. It was great to be back at it and if you enjoy running and haven't done so in a registered race, I highly recommend it. As massochistic as it seems to get up at 6am or earlier on a Saturday, that's quickly forgotten in light of the abundance of positive energy at these runs.
When you do these runs you get a race kit with something from the sponsors. I believe this is known as a "swag bag" in non-athletic events. Race kits are weird for me...they're exciting in the sense that it's interesting to see what samples are included this time, but on the other hand the t-shirt is all I care about because the samples always prove to be disappointing. This year it included information about future runs, a bag of pasta sauce (gave it away), rice chips (coworker took those), and juice. It was when I saw the juice that my attention was piqued(because I'm sure at this point you're wondering why I'm talking about a race kit to begin with).
See if you spot it too:
If you didn't that's fine, there's no judgement :) The sample we got was the same as the middle bottle in that picture. As mentioned in an earlier post, the media and food companies are great at generating buzz words. In this case Omega-3's are in the spotlight.
Putting aside all debates about whether producing fish oil is sustainable, they are well recognized as having significant health benefits (that's a story for another day). Those who have done any research on supplementing with fish oil may have found they should be ingesting anywhere from 0.5g to 1.0g for every 10lbs of body weight based on how healthy they are. Most fish oil products advise roughly 12-14grams/day for the average adult. Given that, I was really surprised that juice might contain Omega-3s and curious to know how the taste was affected: it only takes one day of burping up fish oil taken in the morning to know it's best taken at night when you first introduce your system to it.
You're probably wondering where my point is in all this. So far we know that the juice is advertising containing fatty acids, you need a minimum of 12grams/day, and fish oil doesn't taste good. It all sounds like good news until you realize that we're still talking about juice.
Juice: synonym for a LOT of sugar.
True, that definition didn't come from a dictionary but from a nutritional perspective that's all you really need to know. Runners love carbohydrates (sorry but it's true), and understandably we do need them but not in juice form. Around the time that pop was getting targeted, juice was under the microscope for it's high GI rating and the negative implications associated with that. My cousin used to ask us when we were little "would you eat six apples? no? then no, you can't have apple juice"...she had a valid point. However, just as anything else that's been hit economically, a re-invention happens. This is juice's re-invention and I have a problem with it.
The label looks fantastic: antioxidants, omega-3s, energy, sold! The nutritional information, however, looks terrible. Each 300ml serving contains the following:
For every 30 grams of sugar you can get...wait for it....0.1grams of omega-3s!!!! Out of your daily dose of (for example) 14grams! Woo, you're well on your way :) You're also well on your way to putting yourself in a diabetic coma if you do try to achieve your EPA/DHA requirements:
14 grams of Omega-3s through Oasis Omega-3 juice would put you at 4200 grams of sugar. That's a lot of juice!
I do realize that no one in their right mind would really try to do this but my point is simply that juice still isn't good for you. Eating some salmon or a can of sardines is a far better option. I don't believe Oasis juice proves itself to be a significant source of Omega fatty acids and don't understand how it is allowed to be advertised as such. Consumers put a lot of trust in the front label and maybe there ought to be tighter restrictions on what is allowed to be printed.
To quote Robb Wolf: "I have serious issues with entities that prey on peoples fears and ignorance to make a buck."
Don't drink the juice!
xoxo,
F
P.S I should note that juice does serve a purpose in a few circumstances: low blood sugar that did or is about to result in fainting and for long continuous exercise (eg:a marathon, full length triathlon, etc) where eating solid food is not an option.
No comments:
Post a Comment