None of this surprises me. But, I think we have to consider this in perspective--at least for me--my toddler son has had a few jarred baby foods in his life but that wasn't the norm--we used them on family holidays or once in awhile for convenience--and in the whole range of things, even if some of them had a bit too much sugar or saturated fat in them, it doesn't really affect him long-term. Overall, he eats what we eat and as we eat well-rounded, low-sugar, low-saturated fat foods, he eats quite healthily.
I think every parent should do his or her research and find out exactly what is in the products they feed their small children. We definitely should not just believe, sight-unseen whatever companies tell us in their marketing--and that goes for any product out there but especially when it comes to baby products.
There have been many times in HK when I've picked up a product at the grocery store (even a product especially for babies) and thought, "This looks like something good" only to turn it over and look at the list of ingredients and find a load of preservatives, MSG, high fructose corn syrup, a lot of sugar and salt or just things that simply aren't going to do my baby's body any good. So, that product went right back on the shelf.
However, in the past when we did use jarred foods once in awhile almost always they were organic foods with no added sugar or salt and most of the time they were vegetables.
When it comes to juice, the way I was raised, we didn't drink juice or soda or anything besides water regularly (as a child I could count on one hand the number of times I had soda in a year).
Juice, in itself, whether it is fresh-squeezed with no sugar added or bottled is very acidic and hard on delicate baby teeth. Once in awhile if our family is having orange or grape juice with dinner I will dilute a tablespoon or so into a glass of water for my son--in this way he gets the faint taste of juice but without the high-sugar impact. At this stage, the last thing I need to be doing is raising a sugar addict.
