BBC, BBC, pour some sugar on me

Ah, the lure of a good headline. Rather irresistible, don't you think? But I'm actually not talking about the title of this post, but the headline of a recent BBC article which read: Do toddlers need cake as well as carrots?

The article is a report about a study of meals served to children in British nursery schools. The study found that none of the schools managed "to meet all of the current guidelines on food for this age group." This included serving meals high in salt, too big or too small in size, and with too much fruit. The fruit, they say, could potentially make them so full, they're not getting enough good fat and protein, or enough carbs.

Well, the BBC ran with this one, because the next best thing to eating sugar is selling everyone on the idea that we should be eating more sugar. And they did just that: They found a pediatric nutritionist to claim that "parents really shouldn't feel too anxious about puddings - sponge and custard is a good dessert to offer, surprising as that may sound. This is a much better option than a handful of biscuits between meals."

First of all, biscuits—especially the UK variety—are made from refined carbohydrates, flour as refined as what's in cake. Secondly, how did they manage to make the leap from "Don't eat too much fruit" to "Eat cake and custard?" So much for responsible reportage. And never mind that human infants have done quite well without refined sugars for about 200,000 years.

Ironically another article, short on the heels of this story, stated that a lot of breakfast cereals have as much (or more) sugar than some cakes. But this is no surprise really, considering breakfast cereals are mostly flour and sugar. As an example, Weetabix Minis Chocolate Crisp, a UK cereal, has 28.2 g of sugar in a 100 g serving. That's more than 25% sugar. If you estimate that there are 4 g of sugar per teaspoon, that would be equivalent to adding 7 teaspoons of sugar to your cereal.

If you would still like to reduce the amount of fruit per the above guidelines, please consider other whole food, unrefined carbohydrates before having your child toddle off on the road to obesity and diabetes. Some of them are, in no particular order, peas, corn, potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin, beans, yoghurt, oatmeal, beets, and carrots.