Juice or Fruit Drinks?
from Nutrition Newsletters for Parents of Young Children, USDA

Why Fruit Juice? Juice is an easy way to enjoy fruit.  Keeping juice on hand is good for your whole family!  Here’s what juice provides:

• Vitamin C to help heal cuts and bruises, fight infection, and use iron from food.
• Vitamin A in some juices for healthy eyes and skin.
• Carbohydrates for energy.  Sugar from fruit is the carbohydrate in 100% juice.

Juice is mostly water.  Like you, your child needs enough fluid to stay healthy.

How much Juice? Offer your child enough, but not too much:
Ages 1 – 6 years: ½ to ¾ cup of juice a day.

Go Easy… Because juice is convenient, it’s easy to drink too much of it. Here’s why drinking too much juice can be a problem:

• Juice has calories.  Too much may give your child more calories than he or she needs. That may contribute to overweight. Go easy for yourself, too!
• If juice replaces milk or calcium-fortified soy beverages, your child may not get enough bone building calcium.
• Sipping juice a lot promotes cavities.  Sometimes diarrhea is a problem too. 

Which would you buy? Orange juice, juice drink, or orange soda? Each has a sweet citrus flavor.  Labels can help you choose the best beverages for your family.

• For nutrition, 100% orange juice is the best.
• Juice drinks have some juice and added vitamin C.
• Orange soda is flavored water.
• Nutrition Facts on the label tell how calories and nutrients differ.
• Ingredients tell what it’s made from.