The War on Fruit Juice

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I’m drinking Juicy Juice fruit punch over crushed ice as I sit down to write this column about the war on fruit juice.

I spotted this story about how fruit juice is the next campaign in the battle against obesity among American children, and it made me both cringe with guilt and roll my eyes.

The guilty cringing comes from buying two jugs of Juicy Juice each week, primarily for our 2-year-old son; our 4-year-old daughter has transitioned out of her juice phase and into her junk food phase. The eye roll comes from the fact that this is just another story about yet another way we parents are getting it all wrong and committing countless sins in our attempt to raise the next generation.

The latest line on fruit juice, per the story linked above, is that it’s just as bad as sugary soda. Something about how squeezing the juice out of a piece of fruit is awful because when you do that, you miss out on the healthy fiber while getting only the bad stuff, a.k.a. sugar. I get that and it makes sense, but do we really need to pass over the juice entirely? Is the small gulp of orange juice that I use to wash down my vitamins a terrible mistake?

Whatever happened to the idea of everything in moderation? Ike only gets poured one sippy cup of juice each day to drink with his lunch. The rest of the time, he drinks either low-fat organic milk or water. The American Academy of Pediatrics, per the story I stumbled across, actually says that one serving of fruit juice is ok, though another expert referred to says it would be better to just say no.

To play devil’s advocate to my own argument, I can see that point. I know that Ike prefers fruit juice to almost anything else. He will go to the fridge, open the door, and take out the big juice jug and carry it around the house until we grab it from him and give him some. I don’t always give in, but we have made it a habit to take the kids out for a walk after we get home or out to play every night before bed time. It seems to me that a little Juicy Juice and some exercise out to balance each other out.

What do you think? Do you think that fruit juice has no place in a child’s diet? Or do you think all this hullabaloo is unfounded?

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