Cheers, Ollie!!

I commiserate with Ollie when it comes to disliking water because I loathe it, myself. I can add things to it and tolerate it (lemon juice & sweetener, for example) but unless I've consumed an unusual amount of salt - which is rare, I have no interest in water. In fact I have to laugh just a bit when I see people hoisting a tank of water the size of a bus everywhere they go; seems like an unnecessary trend, a little over the top...which is NOT to say that I don't wish Ollie would LOVE water, crave it, beg for it, help himself to it. My 4 other kids drink plenty of water but if given a choice, they'd pick something else. Most nights at dinner, we put a tall pitcher of water on the table and refill everyone's glasses (5oz Dixie Cups - do these qualify?) as needed. Ollie gets a "Dipsie"cup - as he calls it - with Ocean Spray Light Cranberry Juice...which ends up being the drink I allow most consistently for him because it ends up being an O.K. deal, cost wise....and the other kids are not tempted by it which means there's actually some in the house for Ollie...

Another obvious plus of [tap]water is that it's affordable/free!!! I started, and then stopped, buying Tropicana Orange Juice a few years ago after my Mom turned my kids on to one of the super-pulp varieties during a visit and they started to BEG incessantly for it, thereafter. It was disproportionately costly, considering how FAST a ½ gallon would disappear (Trader Joe's Orange Juice tends to be a much better price...which means I'll spring for it more often). O.J., in general, never lasts more than just over an hour in our house because these kids are like gold-diggers, tipping each other off with real-time reporting of the refrigerator activity, and NEEDING to strike it RICH as often as possible. "There's Orange Juice!!!; "...there's Orange Juice?"; "...there's ORANGE JUICE!!!"...and then they do the flock-chug-empty routine that is their collective expertise. All in all, when I bring a much-coveted item into the house, it's as if I am declaring contraband to a throng of piranha customs officers in my front hall.

So the "approved" drinks in our house that are liked by all of the Piranhas are Chocolate Milk and Orange Juice. A few of them like Plain Milk and/or Cranberry Juice. With 5 kids refills should never be offered in one sitting if the supply is to last more than 10 minutes...but this isn't how it works...which is why water is still the smartest solution....oh, yeah...but then there's Ollie...

What they REALLY want, however, is SODA (aka "POP"); my kids foam at the mouth for it and probably more severely because of my refusal to buy it for home. Historically, they are allowed to order soda in restaurants and if they go with me to get groceries, they'll scrounge some change for the highpoint of all shopping excusions - the 25cent Soda machine at Copp's. You'd think they were at an Amusement Park...racing for that machine like they're getting in line for the BEST ride of their lives!! As fun as this is for them, I generally recoil from the idea of soda...see it as the epitome of empty calories and wasted money.

Enter ORANGINA...Orange Juice meets Soda...kind of...

This is not Juice as we know it, although it does boast a bit of pulp and zest, along with orange, lemon, grapefruit and mandarin juices...and while it is also not soda, it has a little FIZZ, a little FUN and the glass bottles have a whimsical shape and texture...lolli-pop-ish, bubbly... as well as no artificial colors of flavors; the whole thing adds up to DESIRABLE. Ollie LOVES it...wants it almost as much as Soda but I don't buy it as often as he wants me to. It's a special treat.

The question is, is it any better for him? I decided to check out the nutritional information to see if anything sticks out as a clear winner. I focused on the things that I typically scan the label for in a product - Protein, Sugars, Calories and the presence of High Fructose Corn Syrup between the following offerings (and I personalized the names):

8oz Drink  / Calories / Protein /  Sugars / High Fructose Corn Syrup

Chocollie     170         8             26          2^nd ingredient

Milk

(1% White    110        8              12          n/a

Milk)

Olliegina      100         0             26          2^nd ingredient

Ollie Juice    110         2             24          n/a

Cranollie      40           0             10          n/a

Juice

H2Ollie         0            0              0            n/a

My conclusion is this - because I am HFCS averse/paranoid, I'd pick Orange Juice (Trader Joes brand) and the Light Cranberry Juice over Chocolate Milk or Orangina; I was disappointed to see that Orangina has this as the second ingredient but I won't reject it completely. As I might have asserted prior to reading the labels, 1% Milk comes out better than any of them with the same Protein as the Chocolate variety and less sugar...except that Ollie goes hot and cold on White Milk...

Oh well.

Cheers, Ollie - here's to you, with the hopes that your DIPSIE-CUP runneth over!!