Juice Sugar free or not?

[Skribble]

Not sure if its been discused but wonder what peoples thoughts were.

Whats best diluting juice with sugar, or artificial sweeteners. Is high juice any better.

My kids drink fresh fruit juice but not all the time.

[Evesmama]

not sure about that but HV said fresh juice diluted with water is best form of juice?

[lunavix]

Me and ds (13 months)have sugar free cordial, because I am painfully aware of my calorie intake, and because as ds is on the larger side of his age I'm not too worried about him having less either! Chemicals do worry me, but I do think sugary cordial is unnecessary.

Having said that.. I give him normal calpol as the chemicals in the sugar free one worry me! So maybe it's more me I'm worried about!

[Skribble]

I should have said kids are 5 and 8.
Thats the problem with sugar free cordial it has artificial sweetener.
When I say diluting juice I mean cordial. I have always given them sugar free, but begining to worry about amount of asparitine and the likes. They aren't over weight and fairly active.

[bhuna]

No cordial, unless it's pressed organic additive free fruit concentrate, buy a juicer and mix with water, the ratio depends on the age

I only have milk and water in my house as they would drink crap if they could, because they have no choice they looooooooooove water

[Skribble]

Thats maybe taking it a bit far Bhuna. They like jucie and a 8yrs I'm not goint to wean him off it. Just not sure which is the best they all seem to either have loads of sugar or sweeteners.

[bobbybob]

A slurp of normal fruit juice topped up with water. Then you don't have to choose between sugar and sweetener.

BTW Sugar for me every time, for the same reasons I have butter not marg.

[bhuna]

Not too far at all, just use a strong fresh juice if they like cordial, something like cranberry and fill with water after a splash

[Skribble]

They have pure fruit at breakfast and lunch. I'm looking for variety god forbid they have a coke !

[NotQuiteCockney]

My DS1 (3y) sometimes has herbal tea, with nothing added.

Juice isn't really very good for you - much of the goodness of fruit is lost, but all the natural sugar is kept. We only have juice in the house from time to time, which keeps things simple (DH will happily drink a litre of orange juice a day!).

[snafu]

A decent (not from concentrate) juice, diluted half-and-half with water. Prefer to give fruit sugar than artificial sweeteners, but ds only has it once a day anyway - I try and give him water the rest of the time (or smoothies yumyum)