5 Easy Ways To Cut Sugar From Your Child’s Diet
Inside: Looking for ways to reduce sugar from your child’s diet (painlessly)? Use these five simple tricks that keep the flavor but cut the sugar.
Most kids (including mine) love sugar. But most of them get way too much.
Added sugar, the kind put in by manufacturers, comes from the usual suspects like soda, candy, and desserts. But plenty of staples in children’s diets provide added sugar too–even seemingly healthy stuff like yogurt and whole grain cereal.
Why is cutting back on sugar important for kids?
With so many foods and drinks containing added sugar, kids start expecting everything to be sweet. And when the sweet tooth is stoked by hyper-sugary stuff, more mildly-sweet foods like vegetables (and even unsweetened drinks like water) may start to lose their appeal.
So reducing the added sugar in your child’s diet makes sense, both for their health and their flavor preferences. You could buy unsweetened foods and drinks and sweeten them yourself (or just serve them plain). You could also take a gradual approach, which works well for kids who are devoted to their very favorites.
Balance the sweetness yourself with this easy trick
One way to gradually reduce sweetness in the foods you serve at home is to go “halfsies”: Combine sweet foods and drinks with their unsweetened counterparts. You’ll significantly cut the total added sugar but preserve some of the familiar sweet taste.
As your kids get used to a less sweet flavor, you can even transition to the unsweetened version completely (or sweeten by adding fruit or a touch of honey to foods like cereal and yogurt).
TIP: Every 4 grams of sugar = 1 teaspoon. For example: A cereal with 8g of sugar per serving has the equivalent of 2 tsp of sugar.
Ideas for going halfsies at home
- Plain yogurt (1/2 cup) + Flavored yogurt (1/2 cup) = 1.5 teaspoons less sugar per cup
- Regular O’s (1/2 cup) + Honey Sweetened O’s (1/2 cup) = 1 tsp less sugar per bowl
- Plain Quick Oats (1/4 cup) + Half a Packet of Instant Flavored Oatmeal = 1.5 tsp less sugar per bowl
- Unsweetened Applesauce (1/4 cup) + Regular Applesauce (1/4 cup) = 1 tsp less sugar per serving
- Plain White Milk (1/2 cup) + Chocolate Milk (1/2 cup) = 1 teaspoon less sugar per glass
 |  |
 |  |
How much sugar is too much?
The Dietary Guidelines recommend no more than 10 percent of calories should come from added sugar. Here’s what that looks like for kids of different age groups:
| Age | Calories/day | Max grams sugar/day | Max tsp sugar/day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-3 | 1000 | 25 | 6 |
| 4-8 | 1200-1400 | 28-32 | 7-8 |
| 9-13 | 1600-1800 | 40-44 | 10-11 |
Want to see what that looks like in real life? See age-by-age examples here: What a Day’s Worth of Sugar For Kids Really Looks Like.
Are some kinds of sugar healthier than others?
If you’re wondering whether maple syrup, honey, or coconut sugar are better for kids than white sugar, get some answers here: The Truth About Sugar.
In short, some sweeteners have less involved processing, but all of those sweeteners are considered added sugars. So when we look at daily recommended limits, all of those kinds of sugars count.
I love this idea. Sharing!
Thanks Alli!
This is a great reminder! I do this with yogurt like you do, apple juice (1/2 cup juice and 1/2 cup water), and cereal (1/2 serving granola and 1/2 serving Cheerios).
Emily–good idea with the granola. Granola is typically so calorie-dense, I really try to watch my portion. Combining it with Cheerios is a good way to make it go farther.
These are such great and simple ideas! My son is still young enough that I control everything he eats but I’m already nervous about when he starts going over to friends’ houses and really experiences how much sweeter everything can taste! I love that these suggestions are so realistic for all families and ages!
Thanks Elizabeth! Appreciate it.
Wow, we are doing this at our house too after watching Fed Up! I do the chocolate milk, cereal and yogurt! We also have been skipping the syrup on our pancakes and using pureed blueberries. We do lots of frozen fruits! I also had the kids buy a pack of SF fruit flavored gum to help cut down on all the Halloween candy, blah! Let me know if you find a kid-friendly low-sugar “go-gurt” – those are like candy, ahh! Great post!
You can make your own using Zipzicle bags. They are zip top bags the size and shape of a go-gurt. They are also great for making your own ice pops and for portion control for snacks like trail mix.
Jennifer–I have seen those bags but have never used them. I need to check those out!
I reduce all sugar if I do any baking. I even make some cookies with no sugar. The kids get used to it if you cut back little by little.
Genius!! We do the oatmeal trick, but I hadn’t thought of all the others. Thank you.
I love the visual comparison pics on your post! We use most of these lower-sugar version products at our house…but I love me some honey toasted oats. Maybe one day I’ll make the switch to plain…
Thanks Brittany! And thanks for giving this post some love. 😉
i can’t believe this post gets no love! It was so eye-opening for me. Such an easy, easy way to cut sugar. I use it all the time with my sweetened yogurt loving crew – and they never notice! It also works great with chocolate milk, although we restrict that treat to grandma’s house only (we see her for 3 day stretches once a month or once every other month). Actually, that’s my favorite trick – save the junkie stuff for grandma’s house only. She looks like a rock star, and I keep the crap out of our house. This is one of my all time favorite posts of yours.
Totally do the halfsies trick in our house! Started once the girls became aware of flavored yogurts, lol!
Thanks Jessica! It’s such a great trick and my kids have never commented negatively about it when I serve it to them. Never even noticed.