Drinking juice means missing out on all of the fiber you find in whole fruits. “A glass of juice is considered a serving of fruit, but it’s best to encourage kids to eat the whole food, not just the juice,” says Katz. “You can also add fresh fruit to water and let it infuse overnight or make juice ice cubes to put in your child’s water,” she says. To give them the flavor without the extra sugar and calories, Katz suggests mixing juice 50/50 with water. You can reduce the amount of juice your kids are drinking by diluting it. Children 7 to 18 shouldn’t have more than 8 ounces per day.Children 4 to 6 years old shouldn’t have more than 4 to 6 ounces per day.Children 1 to 3 years old shouldn’t have more than 4 ounces of juice per day.Children under 12 months should not drink any juice.The current nutritional guidelines recommend: And it can also fill kids up so that they don’t eat enough healthy foods. Drinking too much fruit juice is linked to the development of cavities in young children. Healthy Juice Guidelines For KidsĮven after you’ve found the healthiest juice (one that’s 100% juice and nothing else), it’s still wise to limit how much of it your kids guzzle down. By definition, a product that is 100% juice will contain 0% added sugar. Ideally, you want to choose a drink that has no added sugar. “So it’s important to check if a juice beverage has any added sugar and also compare different types of juice to see which ones naturally contain more sugar.' “Any fruit juice, including a drink that’s 100% juice, will have a high sugar content because fruit naturally contains sugar,” says Katz. The nutrition facts panel will tell you how much sugar is in the drink you’re buying. A check of the back label reveals that the first two ingredients in the drink are water and sugar. And while that may be true, few of those natural ingredients are juice. One popular “juice drink” proudly proclaims on the front of its package that it contains all-natural ingredients. If it does, you’ll know that the reason the drink is an “excellent source of vitamin C” is because they added it in - not because you’re getting it from real fruit. For example, check to see if the ingredients list includes “ascorbic acid” (another name for vitamin C). The ingredients listing provides important insights that can help decode the front label language. “You need to read the ingredients and also check the nutrition facts panel,” says Katz. No matter what the label on the front may claim, you can quickly get to the truth by simply turning the bottle around. But the only phrase you really want to see on the front of your drink bottle is “100% juice.” That line is your guarantee that what you’re buying is, in fact, nothing but juice. “Manufacturers deliberately choose wording that makes the product sound more nutritious,” says Katz. The problem with the language you find on the front label is that it rarely tells the whole story. Some common (and often misleading) label claims include: “It’s going to say things that make you want to pick it up off the shelf,” says Katz.

So it pays to be wary of the words you find on that front label. The front of the drink bottle - the part you see as you quickly scan the supermarket shelves - is carefully designed to lure you in. “They purposely use fun colors, cartoon characters or celebrities to make the products more appealing.” Decoding Confusing Claims “According to a study done by the World Health Organization, 50% to 90% of food marketing is focused on junk food, and a lot of that is geared toward kids,” says Alyssa Katz, R.D., a community dietitian with Henry Ford’s Generation with Promise team. And those eye-catching labels and unclear claims on drink bottles are no accident. If you’re not careful what you grab, you may not be bringing home the healthiest juice for your kids. A trip down the supermarket’s juice aisle can be surprisingly confusing.

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