If Channel One News could sell children a sugar-loaded drink with chunks of bacon in it… they would.
From Jim Metrock:
Channel One News is now advertising the notorious SunnyD beverage to its captive audience of schoolchildren. Yes, Channel One News is back advertising junk food to American students. If you think “junk” is too harsh for such a “sunny,” “delightful” drink, then you probably haven’t checked out its ingredients.
SunnyD looks like orange juice, but that’s just the chemical coloring added to make this drink look more appealing. SunnyD contains both Yellow #5 and Yellow # 6 coloring chemicals.
SunnyD contains 5% juice. Not “5% orange juice, but “5% juice.” What does “juice” mean exactly?
Reading the back of a Tangy Original SunnyD bottle one discovers that SunnyD has “2% or less” of several different concentrated juices: Orange, Tangerine, Apple, Lime, Grapefruit, and Pear. (Yipes! Pear!?) Let’s consider this. “2% or LESS” means any one of the listed juices could be 0%. Since the total juice content of this product is 5% and SunnyD isn’t locking itself into a minimum amount of any particular juice, then there can be a number of juice combinations. SunnyD could consist of 2% orange juice + 1% lime juice + 2% grapefruit juice. Or 1% orange + 1% tangerine + 1% apple + 1% lime + 1% grapefruit. There might be no orange juice in SunnyD whatsoever and the company would still be true to its ingredient labeling.
Stated another way: SunnyD stakes its reputation behind its firm promise to parents that SunnyD will never, ever contain more than 2% orange juice.
So there is very little fruit juice in this product and it’s unknowable what combination of juices it contains.
Now if you are like me and the thought of drinking even one percent pear juice is unnerving, don’t worry, the large amount of sugar in SunnyD will cover up that scary, peary aftertaste. There are 19 grams of sugar in every 11.3 oz. bottle of Tangy Original SunnyD. That is 1.68 g. of sugar per ounce. That is shockingly one half of the sugar found in one ounce of Coca Cola Classic.
The man at Channel One who is responsible for advertising this stuff to kids is CEO Kent Haehl.
Mr. Haehl and Channel One have in the past aired classroom ads for Pepsi, McDonalds, Doritos, Jolly Rancher candy, Snickers, Twinkies, Pringles, Mt. Dew, and M&Ms. Mr. Haehl has always been a bit insensitive when it comes to the health of American schoolchildren, but he’s a kiddie marketer, what do you expect from him?
See Channel One’s SunnyD commercial below.
