Cookie Monster: A Bad Apple?

Captializing on Cookie Monster's new healthy approach to eating, the folks at Musselman's have introduced a line of applesauces designed to appeal to children. The new Sesame Street line of applesauce is promoted on the Musselman's website, which says, Kids will love the taste of Big Bird Green Apple, Cookie Monster Grape and Elmo Cherry.

Gosh, is it really so difficult to get kids to eat applesauce that we must corrupt the natural sweetness and add neon colors to motivate children to eat it?

Which would you rather feed your child:

• Product 1
  Ingredients: Apples
• Product 2
  Ingredients: Apples, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Water, Calcium Lactate, Citric Acid, Absorbic Acid (Vitamin C) and Natural Flavor. Yellow 5 and Blue 1 color added.

Product 1 is none other than Musselman's Apple Time Natural Applesauce. Nothing but apples in the jar!

Not only that, it's just 50-calories per 4-ounce serving with 13g of carbohydrate and 2g of fiber. Not bad. Definitely something I would not hesitate to allow my own child to eat.

Now Product 2 is the Big Bird Green Apple applesauce. A new product the website is promoting as healthful! Eating healthy is always better with friends so Musselman's has included some of your child's favorite buddies from Sesame Street on our new, delicious, flavored apple sauce snacks.

Not only does the product have 60% more calories [80 calories for a 4-ounce serving], it has more carbohydrate with 21g of carbohydrate and LESS fiber, with just 1g. It's sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup and has added colors!

Shame on Sesame Street for licensing its name to this new line of applesauce! Not only are these products flavored to not taste like real applesauce, they're sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup, which has been shown in scientific studies to increase the risk of obesity, not only in adults, but in children!

It's one thing to take away Cookie Monster's cookies - it's another to use the recongized and trusted Sesame Street characters to promote food products that simply will not help children develop sound, healthy eating habits.

These products will only continue to encourage children to develop a sweet tooth that encourages the consumption of more and more sweet foods. Cookie Monster, Big Bird and Elmo do NOT need to be used to promote products that are sweetened with ingredients that are highly suspect in the obesity epidemic we face in the United States!

You can contact the folks at Sesame Street here: Contact Sesame Street and tell them that licensing the Sesame Street characters to promote high fructose corn syrup sweetened foods is sending the wrong message to children about healthy eating habits!