Disclaimer – this is not a commercial product; just something we made up to solve a nutritional problem with our twins!
Ever since my son discovered the Breyers Pure Fruit All Natural frozen bars in the store, he just doesn’t want to give it up. “Ice cream cold! Ice cream cold!”, as he calls them, is all he wants to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For a while, we didn’t think it was that big a problem; after all, the Breyer’s product claimed to be “pure fruit”. And it had vitamin C, no added sugar and only 40 calories. After a few attempts, we gave in to his demands because we noticed that he would eat the rest of his otherwise healthy dinner if he had a frozen fruit bar in his other hand.
Except that he was eating 3 of these frozen bars throughout the day. So the “empty” calories just continued to add up. He was not getting any other nutritional value from these frozen bars. And to make it worse, his twin sister also joined in the fun and started demanding the same at each meal. So, we decided that something needed to be done about this problem.
I should admit that we got real lucky because this idea happen to come to us purely by chance.
Our twins like to eat a lot of yogurt. One day, as I was about to throw the empty yogurt cup in the trash bin, I wondered if we could just freeze some orange juice in it to offer it to my son instead of the “pure fruit” bars. The OJ we buy is packed with vitamins, calcium, folic acid, magnesium and potassium. It is low in sugar and calories. As it turns out, the yogurt cup holds about the same amount as one of the frozen pure fruit bars, so the nutritional comparison is easy:
%Daily value based on 2000 cal diet
It was, as you can imagine, very easy to make. Even if my son eats 3 or 4 of these in a day, it is like drinking a cup of healthy, nutritious OJ. And judging by these photos, both my son and daughter can’t tell a difference!
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We are thinking of trying cranberry juice (my daughter’s favorite) and frozen yogurt too.
What do you think? Have you had a similar problem? How did you solve it? Do you have other ideas to try?
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
my SIL just returned from the pediatricians office telling me the doc considers 100% juice to be in the soda category! i’m not sure i’d go that far, but i don’t know if i can condone 3 servings of juice a day either. One 4-6 oz serving a day is my limit unless we are visiting someone’s house, at a bday party where juice boxes flow freely or it’s a holiday. Home-made popsicles are a tasty treat and are a better choice than most candy or ice-cream, but it’s still a treat and once a day is plenty. Young kids lack impulse control they need to make the best food choices. My advice? Next time they beckon for “ice cream cold” let them choose which meal they’d like it with. They will probably cry when they don’t get it. You can follow up with saying ice cream is a special treat and is not grow food. Tell them lots of grow food is ok, but lots of treats are not healthy. This might be painful and tearful for a couple days, but they’ll accept it if you follow through. Let me know if this helps.
Great point and your advice is excellent. That is why our technique of using a small yogurt cup for freezing the OJ is working out well. Notice that each cup is 1.76 oz whereas a full serving of OJ is 8oz. So it turns out that even if they eat 3-4 of these cups, they are gettig only about 1 full serving of OJ.Still, I think we should try to teach them not to demand so many treats…point well taken.
Your point about fruit juices in general is very valid. Even if there is no added sugar, they are still quite poor in overall nutrition value.
In the soda catagory? For what reason? I understand that juice lacks in nutritional value, but surely unlike soda it is not detrimental to health?
It’s probable that I am simply ignorant on this matter, I am the last person anyone should turn to for neutritional advice for children, but if soda harms the health of a child while providing no netritional value at all, and frozen OJ does not harm a child while still providing no neutritional value then surely the frozen OJ is the lesser of two evils?
I propose that in this scenarion, Mum and Dad are right to do as they have, since it is an assistive measure take to ensure the children DO eat a healthy meal.
I don’t consider orange juice to be healthy unless it is freshly squeezed and consumed immediately……
1. Pasteurization – kills the friendly bacteria, it also greatly diminishes the nutrient content: 66 percent loss of vitamins A, D and E. Vitamin C loss usually exceeds 50 percent. Heat affects water soluble vitamins and can make them 38 percent to 80 percent less effective. Any nutrients added after pasteurization could be synthetic.
2. Ascorbic acid, Vitamin C, or Citric Acid added to juice allows manufacturers to claim that the drink will give your child “100 percent vitamin C.” This health claim, however, can mask its sugary content and hides the fact that other essential nutrients are not included.
3. Citric Acid – The citric acids found in fruit drinks can be more erosive than hydrochloric or sulfuric acid. These acids found, along with the refined sugar in soda, promote tooth erosion which wears away the hard part of the teeth, or the enamel. Once tooth enamel is lost, it’s gone forever. They found that rats had more tooth decay from these commercial juices than they did from soda pop, which is loaded with sugar.
4. Soy – Have you ever wondered why processed orange juice stays cloudy, why the solids do not settle? This is because soy protein combined with soluble pectin is added, and this keeps the juice permanently cloudy. It might be interesting to know, for those of you who are allergic to soy.
Freshly squeezed juice contains more vitamin C than “made from concentrate” canned or frozen juices.
Joanne
First, let me thank you for posting such a thoughtful and detailed response to my post. I don’t disagree with you at all regarding the value of freshly squeezed OJ.
Your comment inspired me to research this topic further. I will be writing a second post with additional information, so please return to my blog when it is posted.
Having said that, let me briefly describe what I found.
In the Tropicana Pure Premium Healthy Kids OJ that we use, the only added ingredients are: FruitCal(a proprietary compound), Beta Carotene, Vitamin E acetate and Vitamin D3.
FruitCal is a chemical compound called Calcium Citrate Malate (CCM). Research has shown that calcium absorption from this compound is very high. It is derived from calcium hydroxide, citric acid (from citrus fruits) and malic acid (from apples). The main purpose of adding this, I think, is to increase calcium absorption and not provide added vitamin C.
Since there is added Vitamin D3, the overall nutritional value is very high from the point of view of calcium absorption.
I agree with your point about sugar. That is why, probably it is not a good idea to consume more than 1 8oz serving per day.