A student (I teach middle school ... 8th graders ... they rock) shoved a half-finished bottle of juice in my face. "Miss, this is totally healthy! You should be drinking this. Look, it has aloe in it."
I took the drink and flipped to the nutritional information. One serving of this "healthy" drink had 23 carbohydrates, but there were two servings in the bottle, so the entire bottle had 46 carbohydrates in it. Out of the 46 carbohydrates, 44 came from sugar. Pure. Sugar.
I explained that this meant that this drink had the equivelent of 11 packets of sugar in it. A 12oz. can of Coca-Cola only has 39 carbohydrates, so about 10 packes of sugar.
My proud moment of the day: he threw away the rest of his "healthy" drink and got out a bottle of water from his backpack.
Packaging can be deceiving, and even though I knew that before, it has become very evident since C's diagnosis. Things that look healthy on the shelf may not be. Diabetes is a real eye-opener when it comes to knowing what is fueling your body. Perhaps, in all of the crazy, that can be the silver lining.
