Juiced Out

You might think one of the best ways to get vitamins and nutrients into your kids is to let them guzzle down fruit juice over the course of the day.

Sounds good, at least in theory, but fruit juices -- even the 100 percent pure juices -- aren't always the best choices for quenching your youngster's thirst. Sure, it's better than soda, but not by much.

The reasons are pretty simple: juice tends to be high in sugar, higher in calories and lacking the fiber and vitamins you'd get from a real piece of fruit. With some "juice products," you're actually getting little more than artificially flavored sugar water.

Yet a new study in the journal Pediatrics shows many children are juicing up more than they should, averaging 2 to 6 servings of fruit juice a day. That's a lot of juice.

So what are the recommendations?

Under age 6 months: none

Ages 1 to 6 years: one 6 oz serving per day

Ages 7 to 18 years: one 12 oz serving per day

The alternatives: milk, water ... or to purely go natural, let them eat fruit.