Choose the Healthy Beverages

Quench your children’s thirst with the right drink at the right time.

• Serve tap water first for quenching thirst, especially when it’s hot outside or your children are physically active. Serve only water between meals and snacks to avoid spoiling your children’s appetites. To encourage your children to drink water, get them a water bottle that has their initials or a unique design on it.

• Milk is good at any time. Offer your children 2 cups (500mL) of milk or fortified soy beverage every day to help meet their vitamin D requirement. If your children do not like plain milk, try adding a small amount of chocolate or strawberry flavouring. A little bit of flavour may make a big difference without adding a lot of sugar.

• Choose unsweetened 100% pure fruit or vegetable juice. A half cup (125mL) is enough for one day. To get the added benefit of fibre, offer whole fruit with a glass of water instead.

Juice versus Fruit drinks – Don’t let packaging fool you!

Look for the following words on packages when buying juice
• Unsweetened
• Pure fruit juice from concentrate
• No artificial flavours or colours added
• 100% juice

Avoid fruit drinks that have these words on the package
• drink
• punch
• cocktail
• -ade

If children start to drink pop when they are young, they are likely to drink more of it as they get older. Drinking pop has been linked to weight gain and other health problems, such as tooth decay.

Do not offer pop to babies, toddlers, or preschoolers. Think of pop as ‘liquid candy’ because it is high in sugar and has very few, if any, nutrients. With older children, let them know that pop is a sometimes ‘drink’ and not an everyday drink.