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Home › Articles › Toddler Nutrition › Fruit Juice

Fruit Juice

Is Your Child Getting Too Much of a Good Thing?

By Kathleen Meister

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Protecting Your Child's Teeth
How you give juice to your child is as important as the amount that you offer. According to the AAP, babies and young children should not drink fruit juice at bedtime, and they should not get juice from bottles or covered cups that allow them to drink it easily throughout the day. These recommendations are intended to prevent baby bottle tooth decay - a devastating type of tooth decay that can completely destroy the front teeth of young children. To protect your child's teeth, make sure that her carrying-around or bedtime bottle contains plain water only. All other drinks (milk, formula, juice or any sweetened beverage) can cause cavities if your child drinks them frequently or at bedtime.

Preventing Tummy Troubles
Limiting a child's juice intake also can help to prevent tummy troubles. The carbohydrates in juice can cause gas and diarrhea if they're consumed in large amounts. Some juices (such as apple and pear juices) are more likely than others (such as white grape juice) to cause this problem, but the AAP says this difference matters only if your child drinks a lot of juice. If you limit your child's juice intake to the recommended level, it's fine to choose any variety that your child likes. If you want to pick a juice on the basis of nutrition, orange juice (which is naturally rich in vitamin C) is a good choice, or you might look for a juice that's fortified with vitamin C or calcium.

When you buy juice for your child, check the label for these two important pieces of information:

  1. To make sure that you're getting real juice, rather than sugar and water, look for the words "100% fruit juice" on the label.

  2. If you're buying refrigerated juice, check the label to make sure that the juice is pasteurized. Unpasteurized juices can cause serious illness in children. The FDA requires all unpasteurized juices to carry the following warning statement: "WARNING: This product has not been pasteurized and therefore may contain harmful bacteria that can cause serious illness in children, the elderly, and persons with weakened immune systems." If you see this warning, don't give the juice to your child. (If you're buying non-refrigerated shelf-stable juices, you need not look for a warning label. All shelf-stable juices are pasteurized.)


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