If you watch TV you’ve probably seen the commercials for Nestle’s Juicy Juice. Juicy Juice has a line of 100% juice and two other functional juice beverages: Immunity and Brain Development. How do their product claims stack up? Let’s take a close look…
Juicy Juice Fruit Juice: This is your standard 100% Fruit Juice product with added vitamin C in a variety of flavors. Check out 5 Things Every Parent Needs to Know about Fruit Juice for more tips on choosing juice. In general, you want juice products that are 100% fruit juice. So with this product, what you see is what you get.
Juicy Juice Brain Development: This product contains DHA, an essential omega-3 fatty acid. Take notice of the claims used for this product. The Juicy Juice website says “enhanced with DHA, an essential building block for brain development.” This is an example of what the FDA calls a “structure function” claim. As long as the product is a good source of a nutrient/ingredient, which the FDA generally defines as providing a minimum of 10% of the recommended daily value (DV), marketers can talk about its structure and function in the body. Don’t mistake this for meaning that the product has been proven to enhance brain development (a company would need to do a clinical study to make such a claim).
DHA is indeed an essential building block for brain development that is especially important for young children. But the two questions that stand out to me the most are:
1. How much DHA do children need; and
2. How much DHA is in the product?
One 4-ounce serving of Juicy Juice Brain Development contains 16mg of DHA. The AAP recommends no more than 4-6 ounces of fruit juice per day for children up to 6 years old and 8-12 ounces for older children. There currently are no recommendations for DHA in the United States. International health groups, however, do have recommendations for adults. According to the DHA/EPA Omega-3 Institute,if you take international recommendations and adjust them to the calorie intakes of young children, 2-3 year olds need roughly 145 mg per day DHA and 4-6 year olds need 200 mg.
So if your child drinks 4-6 ounces of juice that’s 16-24 mg/day, that’s not a significant amount. But if it’s used in addition to other products that contain DHA, it can help. For example, if a 3-year old drinks 2 cups of milk with DHA (64mg), 6 ounces of Juicy Juice Brain Development (24 mg) and an omega-3 enriched egg (75mg) then that’s 163 mg DHA per day. Now we’re talking.
So if you are making an effort to have your child consume a variety of DHA-rich food sources this product may be worth buying. For more on the benefits of DHA see 3 Things Most Parents Don’t Know About Omega-3 Fatty Acids.
Juicy Juice Immunity:This product makes structure function claims based on its fortification with vitamin C and Zinc. Both of these micronutrients play important roles in immune function. So the claims are “to help support immunity” and “contains C and zinc for immunity.” The product contains 100% DV of vitamin C, like a lot of juices do, but it only contains 10% DV for Zinc. Like I said earlier, this is enough to make a claim but may not be the levels parents would expect.
The third ingredient is prebiotic fiber (gum acacia). Prebiotic fibers help to promote the growth of “good” bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. One 8-ounce serving contains 3 grams of fiber. A healthy GI tract also plays a role in immunity. My guess is that because the role of prebiotics on the immune system is not clearly defined, they are using the claim “prebiotic fiber for healthy digestion” for this ingredient.
Because there’s not a specific amount of prebiotics recommended for kids and adults, it’s difficult to tell if this added ingredient makes a difference health wise. Prebiotic fibers can also be found in other foods including bananas, whole wheat, garlic, onions, tomatoes and asparagus.
Overall, I wouldn’t pay up for this product but I might choose to buy it if the price is right.
Got a product you’d like me to review? Send it through. Have you tried Juicy Juice? Let us know what you think!
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Thanks for the information. I had been wondering about this product and you answered all my questions!
Maryann,
I loved the last article on DHA and the juice…very, very interesting…you had asked if there were other products that we would like to see reviewed…
i have a couple of requests
the happy belly dha cereals…oatmeal and multigrain…just wondering how much dha is in those
and their organic puffs…what are your thoughts on those?
i’ve been giving my 101/2 month old baby flax seed for several months now…i know that it contains omega 3’s ..but does it also contain DHA? if so, how much?
lastly, i was reading in the last issue of parents mag…about a new Dr. Greene’s Vegetarian DHA Powder….it supposed to give 100 mg. per tsp and is safe for kids 1 and up….do you know anything about that?
You have been such a wonderful resource and I really look forward to your emails and i pass them along to my friends:)
One thing i’ve been doing to get my daughter to eat salmon is to mix trader joe’s wild canned salmon (i debone it myself) and mix it with trader joe’s european style plain yogurt…she seems to like it just fine..i’ve even had success freezing it in cubes. I pushed my luck and tried it with sardines, she liked it the first day, but not the next..i think it’s just too fishy. I am also going to make salmon croquettes with the canned salmon and see I can get her to eat those too.
I hope this note finds you well.
Take care and thanks for all of your hard work.
Stacy
Hey Stacy,
I just got an email back and each of the cereals contains 16 mg DHA per serving. I can’t seem too much info on Dr. Greene’s DHA powder. On the Twin Labs website it provides information on all his other supplements except the powder. If it does contain 100mg that sounds about right for this age group about 100-200mg per day. I’m still looking for a good supplement for my daughter…every time I try to sneak it in she knows and refused to eat. I tried putting this lemon fish oil in her lemon yogurt and she caught on right away. Let me know if there’s anything else you need!