Most adults, hopefully, know that water is the best choice when deciding the healthiest drink to consume. Dieters and contentious eaters realize that other fluid options do nothing but provide you with extra calories, sugar, or sodium, none of which are needed in our society’s diet. Dieting parents won’t think of consuming anything but water because they don’t want those unnecessary calories found in beverages like juice, but will quickly serve their children a tall glass of some highly sweetened beverage. Why should it be any different for your kids? Treat your kids as you treat yourself, provide them with the healthiest options possible, not only does this provide them with nutritious options, but they are learning at an early age that things (in this case juice/beverages other than water) should be consumed in moderation.
Don’t get me wrong, 100% juice juices are a decent option (as long as you pay attention to serving size) and can contribute to your child’s daily fruit or veggie intake if they won’t eat the whole food source. A great idea for helping your child not take in those unnecessary calories is to “water-down” the juice, meaning pour half of the glass with juice and the other half with water. That way your kids will have a flavored beverage that provides some nutrition, but without all the extra calories.
Thinking of this juice blog I wanted to skim the grocery aisle and come up with a list of decent juices and some you want to avoid. Look below and see if your juice falls into one of my lists.
Juices OK to Drink
First off, always purchase 100% juice
-V8, Tomato juice, and prune juice are all 100% and provide you with fiber, protein, and potassium
– Juicy Juice is 100% juice
– Others that I found to be OK are Tropicana OJ, Simply Orange juice, Florida Natural
– Tropicana Pure juices give you potassium, but no fiber or protein
KEEP IN MIND!
– Always note sodium on juices…you will want to try to keep it as low as possible. Producers of the juices add more sodium when attempting to cut calories, so when you buy a “light/lite” juice note the sodium is higher then the full calorie beverage.
Juices to avoid:
– Anything not 100% juice
– Hawaiian Punch
– Kool-Aid
– V8 fusion light
– Sunny D