"Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be."Sydney J. Harris
|
| |
Planning healthy meals for yourself and your family
Planning healthy meals can be difficult and time consuming, but with some advance planning and some basic knowledge of nutrition, it is easy to create a week's worth of healthy meals that everyone in the family will love. The key to creating healthy, ...
Safely Transitioning Off Meal Replacement Plans
Meal replacements have been part of the diet landscape for decades. They have helped numerous people lose weight, and more importantly, they have helped people learn the difference between healthy and unhealthy eating choices. Both quantity and quality of ...
The Miraculous Claims of the Zone Diet
One way of recognizing a fad diet is said to be the promise of multiple miraculous effects upon health. And Zone diet promises a lot. "Why is the Zone diet so controversial?" "Beats me!" Extract from an interview with Dr. Barry Sears, by Harper&Collins ...
|
|
|
| |
(ARA) - As we move into the cold and flu season -- whether your kids are in day care, elementary, or even middle- or high-school -- now is a great time to make sure they are eating and drinking the foods that are best for them. Drinking a glass of 100 percent juice is an easy, healthy way for young children to get one of the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables they need every day. And introducing 100 percent juice as a healthy beverage while kids are young and parents have the most control over their eating patterns is a great way to steer children away from soda and other sugary alternatives and towards a life-long pattern of healthy eating.
Juice, like any food, should be consumed in moderation, experts tell us. But there is more to it than that. Some juices are just easier for many kids to digest than others, and pediatricians often point to two factors to explain why: does the juice contain sorbitol, an undigestible sugar alcohol, and does it have an even balance of the carbohydrates fructose and glucose?
White grape juice, unlike apple or pear juice, contains no sorbitol and has the proper balance of fructose and glucose. And while several studies have shown white grape juice to be easier for infants and toddlers to digest, digestive concerns involve many school-aged children as well. As many as 10 percent of school-aged children complain of chronic abdominal pain -- some of which could be attributed to the type of juice they are drinking.
"Much research has been done on carbohydrate malabsorption in very young children -- 6 to 18 months of age, for example -- and the scientific consensus is that white grape juice is easier to digest than apple juice or pear juice in this population," explains Marvin Ament, M.D., chairman, Department of Pediatrics, UCLA School of Medicine. "Our study looked at a significantly broader population and showed that for some young people, the choice of juice may continue to have medical significance well into the teens."
Dr. Ament's research included 28 kids 9 months to 18 years old who regularly drank more than 6 ounces of apple juice or pear nectar and were diagnosed as having irritable bowel syndrome, functional abdominal pain or chronic non-specific diarrhea. He and his colleagues found that some or all of these symptoms might be alleviated by drinking white grape juice instead of apple or pear juice. In the study, the kids refrained from drinking juice for one month and then switched to white grape juice for 11 months. Seventy percent of the kids in the study stopped presenting symptoms and remained symptom-free through the study conclusion. Those children who regularly drank less than 12 ounces of juice a day showed no significant changes one way or the other.
"Fruit juice is an important part of young people's diets, but there are some children who just cannot tolerate the particular carbohydrate profiles of apple juice or pear juice," explains Ament. "This is likely due to two factors: these juices have a high fructose to glucose ratio -- approximately two to one -- and they both contain sorbitol. When the subjects started drinking comparable amounts of white grape juice instead of apple juice or pear juice, we saw no recurrence of symptoms in almost three-quarters of the group."
These days, parents as well as school and day care administrators are looking more closely than ever at what kids are eating and drinking. With all the pressure on kids these days to make the wrong eating choices, the need to instill healthy eating habits at an early age has never been greater. As part of a balanced diet, 100 percent juice -- perhaps 100 percent white grape juice -- is a great place to start.
For more information on healthy eating, visit www.5aday.com or www.welchs.com.
Courtesy of ARA Content
About the author:
Courtesy of ARA Content
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Teach kids healthy eating habits (take poll at right)Idaho Press-TribuneObesity leads to extreme health problems such as heart problems, cholesterol and diabetes. Luckily though, unlike other health issues, the solution for obesity is simple: healthy eating and exercise. So why is America as a whole not taking more action ...and more » |
|
Measuring the cost of healthy foodsThe Providence Journal (blog)By Pamela Reinsel Cotter I was in on a recent conference call with the US Department of Agriculture when it announced the results of a study that found that most fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods cost less than foods high in fat, ...and more » |
|
