There’s no fruit in a fruit rollup

Getting my preschooler to eat fruits or vegetables is near impossible. His diet mainly consists of chicken nuggets, waffles, pizza, pasta, chicken nuggets, and crackers. Did I mention chicken nuggets? What is it with those that is so damn appealing to kids?

There are a few almost fruit and vegetable items that he’ll eat. One is ketchup, which can be used on anything listed above, or eaten straight from a spoon. Not kidding. Ketchup has tomatoes, so it’s a vegetable, right? The others look like they might contain some fruit, but they are really fruit themed candy.

Fruit rollups hardly count as fruit. They are basically sugar, and food coloring which comes off on hands, faces, and the white tee shirt that Daddy is wearing. Want to know what is in a Blastin Berry fruit rollup? Pears from concentrate, corn syrup (aka sugar), dried corn syrup (more sugar), sugar, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, citric acid, sodium citrate, pectin, distilled monoglycerides, malic acid, vitamin C (yay!), acetylated mono and diglycerides, natural flavor, color. Now I’m certainly no health nut, but that doesn’t sound very good.

Yogos, Kellogg’s yogurty covered fruit flavored snacks. These things come with a neat little dispenser that kids want to use over and over. Think Pez. Again, the main ingredients are sugar, but at least they add 100% daily recommended vitamin C, so I can rationalize him eating them. It’s like drinking a glass of orange juice every day.

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