"Finally..."

"Finally," says the blandly friendly voice from the TV, "you can have fruit without refined sugar, syrup, or artificial sweetener!"  And I stare at the TV in slack-jawed disbelief.  Surely that's not what the woman said, right?  Rewind the DVR, let's try that again.  Wow.  Amazingly, that is exactly what she said.  And I thought to myself, "Yes, you can have fruit without any of those added things...it's called FRUIT!" 

The commercial was for one of those prepacked little plastic cups of processed fruit, and their big epiphany was that rather than packing it in corn syrup and water, or in sugar water, they pack it in fruit juice.  Which would sound kind of reasonable until you realize that, with the exception of the pineapple, the fruit isn't packed in its own juice, it's packaged in white grape juice, which is essentially nature's equivalent of, well, sugar water.  Sure, white grape juice has Vitamin C, but that's pretty much the extent of it.  Other than that, all it does is add unnecessary (albeit natural) sugar and calories.

Why do we need prepackaged cups of fruit anyway?  They are many times more expensive than fresh fruit, and quite frankly, they don't taste very good.  The disposable bowls are wasteful, made from petroleum and ending up sitting in landfills forever after just one use.  On the other hand, fresh fruit has its own built-in containment system, and it's totally portable!  If you have fruit that you'd rather not eat whole or that you'd rather not peel "on the go", no problem--peel it, cut it up, whatever you need to do, and toss it into a reusable lidded container.



Wow, that took all of about a minute to prepare, and fruits like apples, bananas, oranges, and peaches are even faster, just grab and go!  (TIP:  If you're concerned about bruising your peach or apple, just toss it whole in a reusable container like the one in the picture and it will be fine everywhere you go.)  And I absolutely guarantee fresh fruit tastes better than any prepackaged, processed fruit cup you'll ever see!

So please, don't fall for advertising tricks.  Remember, they're trying to get you to buy a product you don't need and that is bad news all around...it's not as healthy as fresh, it's bad for the environment, it's more expensive, it doesn't save more than a minute or two of time, and it doesn't taste as good!