Why NO JUICE

There are many health reasons why children should not be drinking juice. Children should be drinking milk with meals and water at all other times. We tend to place our taste preferences for juice or soda/pop onto our children, when they are quite content to drink water. Children learn to like the foods and drinks that they are consistently given by their caregivers. 

There are several issues to consider when you provide your child juice:

• It helps create an addiction to sugar
• It is a known cause of obesity and failure to thrive
• A child under 5 does not have the gastric maturity to adequately handle the concentrated acids
• It produces a glucose imbalance that can cause health issues
• It can increase yeast production leading to ear infections and other illness
• It creates a "sugar high" so that when the child crashes, they feel a need for more juice/sugar
• It has little nutritional value unless fresh squeezed
• It can fill up the child, replacing nutritional food
• It erodes tooth enamel and can lead to cavities and tooth loss
• Most juice contains pesticide residue that can accumulate within the child and cause harm
• Citric juices are so caustic they use them as paint remover, most doctors did not even discuss citric juices in my research, assuming parents would not be giving them to young children

While NO JUICE is recommended, if you are going to give a child juice, it should be given after age 3, preferably age 4, since that is when a child’s digestive system is mature enough to completely handle the concentrated acids and excessive sugars juices contain. 

Dr. Tobias Nobrigot:

"Previous studies suggest that the less complete absorption of the carbohydrates in apple and pear juice is commonly attributed to two factors: the imbalance of fructose and glucose—in both apple and pear juice that ratio is approximately two to one—and the presence of sorbitol. White and purple grape contain no sorbitol and the fructose/glucose ratio in each juice is approximately one to one. This study indicates, among other things, that young children gradually develop an ability to absorb the sugars in apple and pear juice. The three year old group handled apple juice nicely but was still digesting the pear juice incompletely. By five, all four juices were being digested properly." 

Fruit juice contains four forms of carbohydrates: sorbitol, fructose, glucose, and sucrose. Not only is sorbitol hard for some children to digest, but juices with a high ratio of fructose to glucose have also been shown to be rough on young gastric systems. Apple and pear juice, in particular, are both high in sorbitol and have a fructose-glucose imbalance.

Fruit juice, which is consumed heavily by children, is not a whole food and adds little nutritional value. Juicing removes the fiber, and unless the juice is freshly squeezed and consumed immediately, most of the nutrients are lost. Commercial canned or bottled juices are mostly sugar (even if you buy unsweetened) and most likely contain pesticides. Excess sugar can make your child more susceptible to illness.

Excess sugar also means that the body is in a state of unbalance blood sugar levels due to the lack of complex carbohydrates. Once the blood sugar level peaks and falls, then children are back asking for more juice, and if given, will keep perpetuating this unhealthy cycle. One of the reasons Type 2 diabetes is on the rise in children.

Doctors say that juice is just as bad as soda.

Researchers say that when a baby's bottle or cup is filled with juice — even the 100 percent, all-natural, no-sugar-added stuff — parents might as well be pouring Pepsi.

A growing body of science is linking sweet drinks, natural or otherwise, to a host of child health concerns, everything from bulging bellies to tooth decay.

Drinking large amounts of juice can also decrease the appetite. If a child drinks a lot of juice, they may not have an appetite for the food they really need.

A child who drinks a lot of fruit juices may be susceptible to yeast overgrowth, as with any high sugar intake. This can lead to chronic nasal congestion, eczema, or throat and ear infections.

Fruit juice consumption by infants and young children has increased over the past 30 to 40 years because of increased availability, convenience, marketing and children’s preferences. Sweetened beverages are preferred over unsweetened drinks even by neonates, as well as young children. By one year of age almost all children drink fruit juice. Concerns about children’s excessive consumption of fruit juice have been raised by a number of professional groups. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Periodontics have expressed concerns about tooth decay and fruit juice. The AAP Committee on Nutrition has expressed concern about sorbitol, a naturally occurring, but nonabsorbable sugar alcohol present primarily in pear juice and apple juice; they cautioned that the "excessive use of fruit juice" may result in gastrointestinal symptoms, such as chronic diarrhea, abdominal pain or bloating . The role of juice carbohydrate malabsorption (especially fructose) in chronic nonspecific diarrhea in children has been recognized for some time.

Among children referred for evaluation of failure to thrive, excessive fruit juice consumption was reported as a contributing factor in nonorganic failure to thrive in eight children, aged 14 to 27 months. In some children, an association between excessive fruit juice consumption and short stature was reported, while in other children, a relationship between high intakes of fruit juice and obesity was found.

The concentrated acids in fruit juice also eat away at the enamel of young teeth, cause significant tooth decay. If giving juice, it must not be in a bottle and should be chased by water.

If your children are drinking fruit juice, you can wean them by diluting one-third white grape juice with two-thirds water. You can slowly cut the juice out altogether. Pure water is the best drink for children.

Another issue regarding juice is the presence of pesticide residue toxins. The USDA pesticide data program has identified carcinogens, hormone disruptors, neurotoxins, developmental/reproductive toxins and bee toxins in juice. Here are links to see what is in the most commonly given juices to children: Apple juice, orange juice.
There is no nutritional or health reason to provide juice to children. Children learn to like what they are served. That should be milk and WATER. Juice is not helpful to a child's body, it is actually harmful and something that taxes the body to handle.