We try to make good choices for our kids whenever we can. In the grocery store, there are all kinds of cartoon characters peeking out from the shelves, proudly announcing this low-fat snack or that iron-enriched one. If my daughter sees Dora the Explorer anywhere on the shelves, she screams for whatever it is (I try to hold her off until we get to the canned veggies, where I know I can find Dora corn).

But are the so-called healthy kid-friendly foods really good for our children?

A Canadian study says not always.

Researchers did not include junk food in their analysis, but they found that nearly 90% of kid products still did not meet established nutritional standards. What’s more, 62% of the foods that researchers deemed to be of “poor nutritional quality” made positive nutritional claims on the package - such as being low-fat, containing essential nutrients or being a source of calcium.

I’m guilty of falling for that ploy myself. If I see “50% more calcium!” but the product doesn’t seem to have a ton more sugar or anything else compared to similar items, I’ll put the one with more calcium in my cart. It’s easy to be fooled into thinking you have a wholesome product in your hand when really, you have the same overprocessed crap — just with added calcium. The bottom line is, it’s still crap.

But it has Dora on it…