I love Jamba Juice. It’s a type of smoothie made from a concoction of real fruit, fruit juices, and either sherbet, frozen yogurt, plain yogurt or soymilk. Seems like a healthy combo, right? I thought so… and when I discovered my toddler daughter loved them just as much as her mommy I made sure to put Jamba Juice on the top of our snack-time list.
Cue the squealing brakes. That practice halted a few months ago when I read one regular serving of the delicious drink contained more sugar than is recommended by the USDA to consume in one day. The revelation (and ensuing criticism from health groups) inspired Jamba Juice to create “Enlightened Smoothies” made with less sugar and fewer calories and carbohydrates. The drinks are called “Jamba Light” and they are made with the sugar substitute Splenda, non-fat milk and whey protein, and your choice of fresh fruit. Problem solved… or so I thought.
The Jamba Juice incident served as an awakening of sorts for me. I am a sucker for those “kid-friendly” beverages prominantly displayed at area supermarkets. They’re supposedly made from “real fruit” and my daughter chugs them down like there is no tomorrow. I used to load up my shopping cart with them, but not anymore. Why? Because I failed to read the labels and didn’t realize how much sugar and carbs were packed into those tiny, colorful containers.
According to my daughter’s pediatrician, even pure juice is packed with carbs and calories. She informed me that I had fallen into the same trap that many parents with small children do: you hand your kid a juice box or fill a sippy cup with 100% fruit juice and think it’s as healthy as handing them a piece of fruit, not realizing that the juices are laden with sugar. Just to drive home her point she then informed me that more than 12-million children in this country are overweight and sugary juices are partially to blame.
So what’s a parent to do? In my case I did some research. Since my daughter loves her fruit juice (and I wasn’t going to have her quit cold-turkey) I did background checks on the slew of new kid-friendly drinks that have recently hit store shelves—the ones that do not include the extra sugars and carbs.
After much trial and error we narrowed it down to two favorites: Wadda-Juice and Wild Waters. Both of these kid-friendly beverages have about half the sugar of 100% real fruit juice and fewer calories. The Wild Waters has about 5 to 10 calories per 8-ounce serving—substantially lower than the juice box my daughter used to drink, which had 50 calories per 4-ounce serving.
There’s another kid-friendly drink you may also want to try called Aroma Water (I liked it, my daughter didn’t.) Its’ just purified water, but a scented cap gives the illusion of flavor. If you don’t want to shell out the extra money that it takes to purchase the Wadda Juice or Wild Waters you could stick with the traditional juice, but dilute it with water and cut the calories in half.
Have you tried any of these lower calorie fruit juice options? Did your child enjoy them?
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