If you’re not already on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution email, I highly recommend it. He doesn’t send out a zillion emails – just maybe one every week or two – but they are always interesting, helpful and thought provoking. Jamie’s “Food Revolution” is his effort to improve the health of children by encouraging them to eat healthier foods – and his first target has been improving the foods served in school cafeterias (an effort I fully support!). But he also looks to parents to get their children to eat better choices at home as well. And in this week’s email, he underscores the fact that one of the biggest sources of sugar in a child’s diet in the U.S. is from soda. We’ve heard that over and over in the news as well. However, he also reminds us that sugar is in many other drinks that are popular with kids. And some are even “healthy” options like juices.

So he created a handy “toolkit” using data from the Harvard School of Public Health’s The Nutrition Source (another great source for tips on healthy living and eating). Jamie’s toolkit is an easy to read chart that shows how much sugar is in 12 ounces of drinks like cranberry juice cocktail (12 teaspoons!!!), orange soda (11 teaspoons) and even orange juice (10 teaspoons). It’s pretty eye opening!

And if you want to get even more detailed, check out The Nutrition Source’s How Sweet Is It? chart. Oh boy. I always knew that 100% grape juice was sweet – but didn’t realize that it has 15 (!) teaspoons of sugar per 12 oz. glass! How about that tasty Odwalla Apple Raspberry drink? A whopping 14 teaspoons. I definitely recommend a quick browse of the chart – and possibly printing it out.

We are not big soda drinkers in our house – but my oldest son loves it as a treat. I told him about a “The Nanny” episode that I saw once where she made one of the children, who was addicted to soda, spoon 12 spoonfuls of sugar into a 12 oz. glass. It took up nearly half of the glass. She pointed out to him that he was drinking that, basically with water and colors and flavors, every time he had a soda. It was a pretty strong visual. And even just telling my son about it got the point across. If you want more visuals, check out this cool site, Sugar Stacks, that shows you exactly what the amount of sugar in drinks and food looks like by featuring photos of the food and drinks with stacks of sugar cubes next to them (the photo above is one of their photos).

And Jamie Oliver’s point? Sugary drinks are OK for a treat, but stick to water for the bulk of your beverage consumption. No calories. No concerns. He even has some great ideas for flavoring your water and some fruit smoothie recipes as well. Fruit smoothies again can pack some serious natural sugar if you use too much juice or milk, or add additional sugar. But they are also a great way to start the day with protein and vitamins. And Jamie suggests throwing in a handful of nuts and/or natural oatmeal as well, both of which can slow down your body’s process of absorbing the sugar.

I have been on a smoothie kick for the past year and a half (ever since I got my Silver Bullet little blender – I love that thing!). Anyway – I do a quick smoothie in the morning with about 1/3 cup frozen blueberries (look for pesticide-free or washed frozen berries as they are often loaded with pesticides, unfortunately…), a little OJ, and about 1/3 cup fat free greek yogurt. I throw in a handful of oatmeal and some flax meal. I know – it sounds nasty that way but it’s surprisingly good and incredibly filling! And this summer I ventured into new territory at the suggestion of a friend who’s a nutritionist. I add a couple of leaves of kale into the mix. Granted you have to have a lot of berries to overpower the kale taste but it grinds up so small you really don’t even realize it’s there. And with kale being such a “super food” – it’s a pretty great way to start the day! (OK, I can hear collective groans from you all – but really, it’s way better than you’d think!)

Regardless of whether you want to do a deep dive into crazy smoothie world or not, the moral of this whole story is that you can easily cut out wasted calories by watching what you drink. Choose water, seltzer or sparkling water (try it with a splash of juice), tea & coffee (easy on the cream but it’s even ok to have a teaspoon of sugar in there) or other low-calorie, low-sugar drinks.  Save the other drinks for a treat. And keep an eye on what the kids drink – teaching them healthy habits at a young age will pay off for sure.