Most people tend to think that drinking juice is one of the ways in which they can supply their bodies with daily fruit requirements. However, it has been noted that juice only contains a lot of extra calories, which will just not fill you up. The researchers said that it is possible to reduce the daily calories intake by lowering juice intake. A study conducted recently aimed at investigating if a reduction of allotment of juice in publicly funded programs can make low-income households to buy less juice or not. As per the findings of the researchers, the families actually bought less juice. In addition, they did not consider taking other drinks as a way of making up for lost apartments. The program successfully appeared to cut down amount of juice, which was being drunk by the families and hoped that this would reduce their daily total calories intake.

Drinking more water is advisable

Tatiana Adreyeva from Yale University, Center for Food Policy and Obesity led the team of researchers where they studied effects of lowering juice allowances provided in WIC program. The WIC actually refer to Special Supplemental Nutrition Program designed for the Women, Infants and Children. The program targets low income moms with young children where it aims at providing certain food allotments. In 2009, WIC program decided to reduce juice allowance by half as most children aged between 2 and 5 years were taking more juice already that what US Department of Agriculture recommends. In place of the juice, the program advised mothers to give their children and infants more water instead as it was healthier than the excess juice.

Research findings on change of juice consumption

The research team gathered information several supermarket scanners for about 3, 137 families that had been using WIC program for over 2 years. The researchers analyzed the data by comparing number of beverages which the families had bought before changes were made on juice allowances from January 2009 to September to the number of beverages purchased after effecting the change. According to the research findings, two-thirds of juice bought by the households was bought through the WIC initiative and was done before the changes were affected. After the allowance of juice in the program was reduced, households bought 43.5 % less juice, which was more or less equivalent to the allowance reduction that was made. The extra amount of juice purchased using personal funds and not through funds provided by WIC was just 13.6 percent. The increase represented 20.9 percent increase of additional fruit drinks, 21% less soft drinks and 21.3 % more purchases of non- carbonated drinks. According to the researchers, such a significant shift on how the families purchased juice can significantly lead to reduction of extra calories consumption through juice. This study was published by the researchers in the Pediatrics journal. The US Department of Agriculture funded the study through Economic Research Services.