Juice?

We rarely have juice in the house, the kids love it but I would rather they drink water. So if there is no juice they drink water all day long. I hate juice in sippy cups, it always drips and leaves spots on carpet.

We now have to keep juice in the house at all times, my 4 year old has to be woken up at 3:00 am to drink it. DH is at the store right now buying it. We found this out yesterday from his dr. This is hard for an 'anti juice chugging kids' mom. LOL

At restaurants they can have soda or juice, my 4 year old usually picks milk. At home it is always water or milk for my 4 year old, my 7 year old refuses to touch it, and doesn't want to sit next to her brother if he is drinking it. LOL

Rachel
cpst and mom to Hannah 3/00 and Liam 8/02

Why does your 4 year old need to wake up and have sugar? (I am just very curious). If you don't mind sharing.

Erika

southpawboston said:

okay, i can see how having juice throughout the day isn't good, especially because of the high caloric content (all that fructose) and because the sugar is bad for the teeth.

but why do so many people think that a little juice is bad? many of you have said that it has "no nutritional value" and describe juice as though it is evil, even in small amounts. how can that be true? and i'm not talking about juice blends or juice with added ingredients or added sugar... i'm talking about 100% juice, no artificial anything. how can it have no nutritional value? what about vitamins and antioxidants?

am i missing something? can someone explain why it has no nutritional value and that plain water is so superior (again, other than the sugar part)?

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Ok, since no one else is brave enough to touch this, I will take a stab at it. Just don't chew me up to bad, southpawboston....

Ok, lets look at 100% juice, no additives. It is made up of mostly water and fructose, natural sugar. It has also been pasterized to give it self life so most of the original vitamins and atioxidents are gone and more (less soluable) vitamins have been added. So it has SOME vitamins and atioxidents but not enough to outweight the high (natural) sugar content...

All right, lets look at freshly squeezed juice, it has pulp in it, which is a good source of FIBER (something Americans do not get near enough of) and a little more antioxidents and vitamins as it is FRESH...

Lets look at a piece of fruit (yummy, I am eating Cantolope at the moment). The peel and flesh of the fruit had LOADS of fiber and antioxidents (always eat the WHOLE piece of fruit if possible) and LOTS of vitamins, definatly enough pluses to outweigh the fructose. Which juice has more fructose in it per serving than friut because fructose and water is makes up, well, the JUICE of the fruit..

So, 100% juice is better than a fruit juice cocktail blend, but then fresh squeezed fruit juice is better than 100% juice, but the the BEST choice of all is a PIECE OF FRIUT....

I hope that makes sense....

Erika Ruth said:

Why does your 4 year old need to wake up and have sugar? (I am just very curious). If you don't mind sharing.

Erika

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He keeps waking up with a blood glucose level of 48-63 and normal is 70-120 and they are not sure why yet. Today was the first day of doing it and I don't think he drank enough because his bgl was 59 which is still low. Once in the ER he was 62 and that was low enough for them to give him IV glucose.

Rachel

ThreeBeans said:

Not letting your child drink his body weight in juice everyday hardly qualifies as being 'restrictive'

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Yeah, that's exactly what she meant. too.

Besides, we only let our kids drink HALF their body weight in juice.

arly1983 said:

Ok, since no one else is brave enough to touch this, I will take a stab at it. Just don't chew me up to bad, southpawboston....

Ok, lets look at 100% juice, no additives. It is made up of mostly water and fructose, natural sugar. It has also been pasterized to give it self life so most of the original vitamins and atioxidents are gone and more (less soluable) vitamins have been added. So it has SOME vitamins and atioxidents but not enough to outweight the high (natural) sugar content...

All right, lets look at freshly squeezed juice, it has pulp in it, which is a good source of FIBER (something Americans do not get near enough of) and a little more antioxidents and vitamins as it is FRESH...

Lets look at a piece of fruit (yummy, I am eating Cantolope at the moment). The peel and flesh of the fruit had LOADS of fiber and antioxidents (always eat the WHOLE piece of fruit if possible) and LOTS of vitamins, definatly enough pluses to outweigh the fructose. Which juice has more fructose in it per serving than friut because fructose and water is makes up, well, the JUICE of the fruit..

So, 100% juice is better than a fruit juice cocktail blend, but then fresh squeezed fruit juice is better than 100% juice, but the the BEST choice of all is a PIECE OF FRIUT....

I hope that makes sense....

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It does make sense...however... with all the research they are doing on phytochemicals, you'd find you need to eat pounds and pounds of fruit per day to get that stuff. Same logic with tomatoes and lycopene...you get WAY more lycopene in tomato sauce than tomatoes. I just can't eat all those grapes to get the benefit of an equal amount of all that good stuff as in a glass of grape juice or wine.

So juice is like any nutritional debate...someone decides it's bad (I used to be the anti-juice warrior..I was never going to give it to my kids, etc...), then someone decides it's good (phytochemicals that have benefit beyond what we were previously able to detect), and when you swing back to the middle you can see both it's good sides and it's bad sides. I still don't buy it often because (small hail to earth day), it's heavy and expensive and requires LOADS of processing and oil to get it to supermarkets, while the water dispenser in my fridge is 'free' and way more fun to use

See thats the thing about nutricion, Julie, there is no clear-cut simple answer. It is usually a , what is the best that is readily available to you and even then you have to make a "informed decision" (Like frozen organic vs. freash supermarket friut and veggies)

I could take that even farther like:

Because of the way fruit is picked green and then artificially ripened, it doesn't have time to absorb as much nutients as the fruit pick ripe and loses nutrients in the artificial ripening stage (and doest tast the same) so fruit strait from the grower is better than supermarket fruit.

But then fruit strait from the grower with NO PESTICIDES is even better.

BUT WAIT, Vegatables on average, are way more nutricious on average than a piece of friut so lets forget about fruit and eat only vegatable picked ripe with no pesticides....

I think you should do the best you can in your circumstances. Work with what you've got. Watch PORTIONS. Make sure your kids eat a variety of food. If nothing else, make sure they drink more than just apple or orange juice, I know some kids will baulk at this. In my daycare, I can not serve the same juice in a three day period. According to the meal plans, that can mean 3-6 different juices (with a serving size being 4 oz) I get lots of kids who only know apple or orange, at first they are not going to drink pinapple-orange-mango. It usually takes a couple of weeks and then they are swlurping up tropical kiwi like a pro. Then add a little carrot juice, before you know it they will be asking for V-8.

By the way, we didn't even touch on the fresh vs canned vs frozen debate!

As far as the phytochemicals, is more of a good thing a great thing? Was the fruit and veggies tested for those levels supermarket, open market, organic? Nutrion is a delicate balancing act by adding more of this you are losing more of that. That is the limit of my knowledge. And here is a conversation me and my nutrisionalist had a couple of months ago, What if all the nutrionalists are WRONG about some things or most things? Like they changed the Food Pyramid and hello they recommend milk as the main beverage for children which I have more a problem with than juice...Like I said, we are getting in waters I know nothing about. What if there is no clear-cut "yes or no"

I'm nodding in agreement, totally . I'd be happy to let my kids eat anything at any of y'all's houses, too.

arly1983 said:

See thats the thing about nutricion, Julie, there is no clear-cut simple answer. It is usually a , what is the best that is readily available to you and even then you have to make a "informed decision" (Like frozen organic vs. freash supermarket friut and veggies)

I could take that even farther like:

Because of the way fruit is picked green and then artificially ripened, it doesn't have time to absorb as much nutients as the fruit pick ripe and loses nutrients in the artificial ripening stage (and doest tast the same) so fruit strait from the grower is better than supermarket fruit.

But then fruit strait from the grower with NO PESTICIDES is even better.

BUT WAIT, Vegatables on average, are way more nutricious on average than a piece of friut so lets forget about fruit and eat only vegatable picked ripe with no pesticides....

I think you should do the best you can in your circumstances. Work with what you've got. Watch PORTIONS. Make sure your kids eat a variety of food. If nothing else, make sure they drink more than just apple or orange juice, I know some kids will baulk at this. In my daycare, I can not serve the same juice in a three day period. According to the meal plans, that can mean 3-6 different juices (with a serving size being 4 oz) I get lots of kids who only know apple or orange, at first they are not going to drink pinapple-orange-mango. It usually takes a couple of weeks and then they are swlurping up tropical kiwi like a pro. Then add a little carrot juice, before you know it they will be asking for V-8.

By the way, we didn't even touch on the fresh vs canned vs frozen debate!

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My ds loves the Odwalla superfood juice. the green stuff. He LOVES it.. But then, he loves kefir just as much.

rachel3612 said:

He keeps waking up with a blood glucose level of 48-63 and normal is 70-120 and they are not sure why yet. Today was the first day of doing it and I don't think he drank enough because his bgl was 59 which is still low. Once in the ER he was 62 and that was low enough for them to give him IV glucose.

Rachel

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Poor baby

BUT WAIT, Vegatables on average, are way more nutricious on average than a piece of friut so lets forget about fruit and eat only vegatable picked ripe with no pesticides....

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thats me! I really dislike fruit, the only fruit intake I get is my cranberry juice, sometimes some lemonade. I might make a fruit tart, smoothie, or put fruit on cereal if I am in the mood. Im a big veggies person though! and probably eat my daily service of veggies plus enough veggies to fill that daily service of fruit space lol! I dont have much of a sweet tooth(I even prefer 70-80% dark chocolate over any other kind) and most fruits are too sweet to the tongue for me. If I eat fruit it is usually berries because I love their tartness.
Id pick asparagus over fruit any day of the week!!! lol!(dont know how good asparagus juice would be though )

I love veggies and fruit. And the boys i watch drink pear juice with water when they are sick with a stomach bug because they can not have milk and jack does not like anything but that and V8 fusion. and they both do not drink water. We are trying to but they just do not like it. before we gave up their bottles we gave it to them in that and they didnt want it and now in their cups they will not drink it. Even if i mix to much water into their pear jucie they will not drink it. But they drink a lot of milk and get V8 about once or twice a week. Not more than a sippy cup full

LuvBug03 said:

thats me! I really dislike fruit, the only fruit intake I get is my cranberry juice, sometimes some lemonade. I might make a fruit tart, smoothie, or put fruit on cereal if I am in the mood. Im a big veggies person though! and probably eat my daily service of veggies plus enough veggies to fill that daily service of fruit space lol! I dont have much of a sweet tooth(I even prefer 70-80% dark chocolate over any other kind) and most fruits are too sweet to the tongue for me. If I eat fruit it is usually berries because I love their tartness.
Id pick asparagus over fruit any day of the week!!! lol!(dont know how good asparagus juice would be though )

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It's Spring in Germany, which means its Spargle und Erdbeeren time (Asparagus & Strawberry -- but not together ) Roadside signs blanket the Pfaltz region advertising local produce stands.

EVERYTHING is made with Asparagus. The finest is a tender white Asparagus that has soups, sauces, and I believe, juice forms too. So you'd be thrilled with trying that. :thumbsup:

Much to my mother's dismay, I AM NOT a Veggie person. You are probably her long lost daughter

I really watch my daughter's consumption of the sugar in juice. No matter how 'natural' it is, the body still processes it as sugar. Since I had gestational diabetes, she has a higher chance of developing diabetes sometime in her life. I don't want to hasten it along with a childhood diet of juice. Besides, it's become such a part of our diet in only the last 12 or so years. DH and I remember juice as an occasional homeade treat. Well, he did. The concoctions my mother created -- Yuck I still shudder to remember.

broken4u05 said:

I love veggies and fruit. And the boys i watch drink pear juice with water when they are sick with a stomach bug because they can not have milk and jack does not like anything but that and V8 fusion. and they both do not drink water. We are trying to but they just do not like it. before we gave up their bottles we gave it to them in that and they didnt want it and now in their cups they will not drink it. Even if i mix to much water into their pear jucie they will not drink it. But they drink a lot of milk and get V8 about once or twice a week. Not more than a sippy cup full

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have you tried adjusting the temperature of the water? My sister's DD only will drink it if it is room temp... but we drink it ice cold. I think it tastes sweeter when it is almost freezing.

Morganthe said:

It's Spring in Germany, which means its Spargle und Erdbeeren time (Asparagus & Strawberry -- but not together ) Roadside signs blanket the Pfaltz region advertising local produce stands.

EVERYTHING is made with Asparagus. The finest is a tender white Asparagus that has soups, sauces, and I believe, juice forms too. So you'd be thrilled with trying that. :thumbsup:

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OMG! points for Germany on that one! My mouth is watering of the thought. Asparagus is just now coming in to season here and so I am trying to think of as many ways to work it in to our meals as I can. Yum-yum!

Dd still rarely gets juice and she'll be 3 in July. I don't remember exactly when we introduced it. I'm guessing around 9 or 12 mos, in a very diluted form because she was a very irregular pooper. She drinks a lot of water and when she asks for milk I thaw ebm and give her that since too much dairy gives her a diaper rash. Even now when she does get juice, it's maybe 1/4 juice and 3/4 water. She was getting the diluted juice so that she'd take her probiotics, but now that we've switched to a chewable that she likes, it's once in a blue moon that she gets juice.

My brother was a juice-a-holic growing up, so I vowed to never have juice in the house on a regular basis. I'm really probably too lazy to make it on a regular basis anyways. (If we were buying it regularly it'd likely be the frozen fruit juice concentrates.) We do occassionally buy OJ with added calcium because I periodically crave it, but that's about it.

So do those of you with juicers use them a lot? I've heard that it's one of those things that you buy and use a ton at first, then never or rarely use after the novelty wears off. I'm sure if I was juicing fresh fruits and veggies I wouldn't have as much of an issue with juice.

Interestingly enough, when we had dd at the dentist a few months ago, he asked about juice and said absolutely no apple juice. Of course if I wanted to give it to her, I would, but I thought it interesting that he brought it up and had such a strong opinion on it. I guess he sees teeth probs from constant juice drinking all the time though.

Morganthe said:

EVERYTHING is made with Asparagus. The finest is a tender white Asparagus that has soups, sauces, and I believe, juice forms too. So you'd be thrilled with trying that. :thumbsup:

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I used to travel to Germany around this time for 2 weeks every year for work before I had kids. The white asparagus is AMAZING! I think I ate it every single day I was there! You're making me miss it!

Teagan loves asparagus and we eat it often. It's one of the few green vegetables other than peas that she really likes. Kaylie hates it, but she loves broccoli, so that's her veggie of choice!

On the juice topic, Kaylie didn't get juice until she was close to 2 (although I do suspect my MIL snuck her some watered down juice when she watched her - she bugged me about it often saying that Kaylie must be sick of drinking water all the time, not that she ever complained, mind you). When Kaylie was 2 and able to drink out of a regular cup, she would get juice maybe 3 times a week. Always organic white grape. For some reason, that's all my kids like. Neither them do well with orange juice.

Teagan on the other hand started stealing Kaylie's juice a few months ago, so she does get it on occassion. She does drink it in a sippy cup becuase she has this wonderful habit of throwing her cup across the room when she's finished. She was over a year when she first had it though.

I honestly don't think juice in moderation is bad for kids. Now if you're talking about the full of crap juice boxes or those evil Hugs things (remember them, they come in a little barrel?), that's a different story. That stuff is completely forbidden in my house. My pedi is a big advocate of no juice until after the age of 1, I can't believe so many pedis say juice at a few months old is OK!

Another thing I wonder about though is milk. I've heard that too much milk is bad for their teeth. Neither of my kids ever took a bottle to bed or anything and from dinner time on, it's water only in my house, except for Teagan's last bottle, which she'll hopefully be giving up soon!

Amy

LuvBug03 said:

have you tried adjusting the temperature of the water? My sister's DD only will drink it if it is room temp... but we drink it ice cold. I think it tastes sweeter when it is almost freezing.

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Well i have to say they will drink some water now and not just spit it out anymore but when we were trying to get them to drink it we tried cold with ice, room temp., and i even warmed it up a little but they just did not like it. They don't love water now but when i go to the park i take a cup of water not milk easier and better in the heat running around.

We don't start juice until after 12 months. My kids get juice once a day, usually apple, not watered down, I think that tastes disgusting. 3 yo gets some in the morning. 4 yo gets a box of juice on preschool days for lunch. I don't think it is the evil thing that many here do. Many of the same things that have been said about juice can be said about pasterurized milk..... I think it is a matter of personal choice really.

amy919 said:

I honestly don't think juice in moderation is bad for kids. Now if you're talking about the full of crap juice boxes or those evil Hugs things (remember them, they come in a little barrel?), that's a different story.
Amy

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In the summer, I get a box of the nasty hugs. They are disgusting, but DS likes them. We share the icky with any kids that wander into the yard.

Seriously, they taste like medicine to me. But yes, I'm entirely too damned lazy to fix healthy drinks for the neighbors children.

Obviously we drink kool-aid sometimes too. And SODA! Argh. My son made a pitcher of kool aid last week. He made a gallon of it, but only used one packet and I don't know how little sugar (I'm thinking VERY little)...it was purple water. He was grossed out. lol I can't remember the last time we had kool-aid before that was made. I know we got the packets last summer. Kool-aid is an occasional thing, but it's still a thing. I mean who doesn't love drink that can stain your clothing, skin, hair and counter tops...permanently?