Numbers Game: Answer

According to the latest Federal Trade Commission figures, food and beverage companies spent a total of $ 492 million in 2006 to advertise soda to children between the ages of 2 and 17.

That is a higher advertising budget than Apple Computers'!

Candy and gum advertising in 2006, you ask? Oh, in the $500 - $550 million range.

Meanwhile, the Five A Day campaign, which promoted eating five servings of vegetables on a daily basis, spent slightly less than $10 million in advertising the year before.

We are all susceptible to marketing, especially children. If something looks "cool," they will want it.

Yes, that even applies to healthy foods. Remember the Dancing Raisins from the 1980s?

I sure do -- it seemed every commercial break from Captain Planet had those raisins in it! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I have provided an image with this post.

The clay-animated spots clearly worked. The California Raisin Board credits that campaign for increasing raisin sales by ten percent.

You Ask, I Answer: Dried Cranberries

[I just read your posting on apple butter and had a question about] dried cranberries.

Are they any good for you because I was reading the nutritional info and it just seems like carbs!

-- Anonymous
Via the blog

All fruits, except for avocados, are basically pure carbohydrate.

I say basically because some might offer 0.2 or so grams of protein.

The fact that fruit is made exclusively of carbohydrates does not make it unhealthy or a bad choice.

When you eat a piece of fruit (not drink fruit juice or have gummy candy "with fruit" or eat fruit-flavored sherbet), you are consuming fiber, naturally occurring sugars, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.

The word "carb" became akin to a curse word because it erroneously equated "empty carbohydrates", which are void of any nutrition (think donuts, cookies, and Goldfish crackers), with truly nourishing ones like oats, quinoa, brown rice, fruits, and vegetables.

It is interesting that you point out dried fruit, though, as it can be a bit tricky to decipher.

On one hand, raisins -- essentially grapes tha have been sunbathing for too long without UV protection -- are a very nutritious snack.

They are a good source of potassium, selenium, and iron, and offer fiber mainly in the form of inulin.

Cranberries run into a problem, though. When dried (i.e.: become Craisins), they become so tart that sucrose (table sugar) must be added.

And we're not talking a light sprinkling.

In turn, they become more candy-like and lose some of their awesomely healthy fruit properties.

If dried fruit is your choice of snack, reach for naturally sweet options like raisins, dried mangoes, dried apples, and dates (dried figs), which rely on their naturally-occurring sweetness to satisfy your sweet tooth.