I pride myself on being a moderate. I’m not a raw foodie and I’m not a junk foodie. I try to be right in the middle. Although it sounds easy enough moderation is seemingly hard to grasp. It never fails that when I give a talk the women I am presenting to feel overwhelmed. I don’t want to overwhelm them and I encourage them to not let themselves feel overwhelmed, to take it one step at a time but it’s a really hard thing to do. It’s taken me years to get where I am now. I didn’t just start making my own bread, farming chickens in my backyard, and collecting water in barrels at once. It’s taken baby steps and perseverance over a long period of time and I’m not even close to done yet!

In my talks I share that juice is a treat. Nothing more nothing less. It’s fructose and water. Albeit maybe a little better than cane sugar and water and definitely worse that high fructose corn syrup and water, it’s still sugar and water. One’s body still treats it as just that. However, that doesn’t mean that it has to be all or nothing. My kids get juice here and there. Do they get it everyday? No. But, during the summer they get it more often. They might get it in the form of popsicles or fizzy drinks where I mix juice with sparkling water. They might even get a small juice box but it is considered a treat. We don’t sit down to a picnic outside with juice and chocolate chip cookies. It’s one or the other.  I keep track of treats and it’s counted as such.

That doesn’t mean that it’s all bad and your kids should never have juice. However, if they’re starting their day out with a glass of orange juice, washing down lunch with a juice box and topping it off with a glass later with snack, I’d say that’s way too much. If you throw some in when you’re making a smoothie or as one mom said, putting a bit of pineapple juice on her sliced apples so they don’t turn brown, it’s not going to add up like sucking down cupfuls everyday.

If you’re kids are used to getting juice on a daily basis it’s easy to cut back a little at a time. Fill up a smaller glass (versus leaving a larger glass half empty), cut it with sparkling water, half it with water and put in a half packet of Emergen-C (not for toddlers without asking your Dr. first), buy smaller juice boxes. If they complain then explain that juice is a treat and that you hadn’t realized before how much sugar it contains. Remember you’re the adult. It can be really hard to make changes but if it’s something you believe in then it’s worth the battle. And isn’t our childrens health well worth the fight?