Feed my kids well

TL;DR. A kid is not a small adult. A 3-year-old's added-sugar cap is 25 grams a day. Yours is closer to 50. A 2-year-old's safe mercury exposure is a fraction of yours. A 6-month-old's safe sodium load is almost zero. This goal swaps the adult thresholds in the scanner for the right ones at each age. You are doing your best in a food system that was not built for them. Treat the page as a grocery-aisle tool. It has nothing to say about you as a parent.

What this goal does

You set the age band: infant 0-23 months, toddler 2-5, kid 6-12, or teen 13-17. The scanner then runs a stricter version of the standard rules. Lower added-sugar cap. Lower sodium cap. Mercury check on fish. Color additive flag. Juice cap. Choking flag for infants. Tighter NOVA Group 4 trigger.

A flag describes the food in front of you and grades it against an age-appropriate threshold. It stops there. A Pop-Tart an adult can eat sometimes will trip the flag for a 4-year-old, because the threshold is tighter at 4 than at 40.

Why kid thresholds are different

Three reasons. First, body size. A 30-pound child eating one serving gets roughly five times the per-kilogram dose an adult gets from the same portion. Mercury, caffeine, and sodium rules run on this math. Second, development. The first 1,000 days from conception to age 2 set the microbial blueprint of the gut and the wiring of taste preference (Spector, Food for Life, Ch. 11). What a baby eats in that window changes which microbes show up for life. Third, exposure dose. US and UK kids get about 75 percent of their calories from ultra-processed food. Italian and French kids stay under 30 percent.

Lustig's Metabolical (Ch 15-16) names the cost. Kids in the US now develop type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, and high blood pressure at rates pediatric clinics did not see in 1980. The American Heart Association's 2017 scientific statement caps added sugar at zero grams under age 2 and 25 grams per day from age 2 to 18, with no sugar-sweetened drinks under 18.

The age-stratified threshold table

Threshold	Infant 0-23 mo	Toddler 2-5 yr	Kid 6-12 yr	Teen 13-17 yr
Added sugar (daily cap)	0 g	25 g	25 g	25 g
Sodium (daily cap, mg)	370 / 800 / 1,200 by age	1,500	1,800	2,300
Methylmercury fish	Low-mercury only, 1 oz, 1-2x/wk	Low-mercury, 1 oz, 2x/wk	Low-mercury, 2 oz, 2x/wk	Low-mercury, 3-4 oz, 2x/wk
Artificial colors (Red 40, Yellow 5/6, Blue 1)	Avoid	Avoid; soft flag if present	Soft flag	Soft flag
Choking hazard (whole grapes, nuts, hard candy, raw carrot rounds, popcorn, hot dog rounds)	Hard flag under 4 yr	Hard flag under 4 yr	N/A	N/A
Caffeine (daily cap)	0 mg	0 mg	<45 mg	<100 mg
100% fruit juice (daily cap)	None under 12 mo; 4 oz age 1+	4-6 oz	8 oz	8 oz
NOVA Group 4 (% of daily calories)	Near zero for solids	Under 30%	Under 40%	Under 50%
Honey	Avoid under 12 mo (botulism)	OK	OK	OK
Raw milk, raw juice, raw sprouts, undercooked egg	Avoid	Avoid	Avoid	Avoid

Sources: AHA 2017 Scientific Statement; AAP 2017 fruit juice policy; FDA/EPA 2017 fish advisory; IOM sodium AI; Krause 16e Ch 15 (Seattle Children's). The AHA picked 25 g as a single number a parent can hold in their head at the grocery store, rather than a per-kilogram scale.

The cereal-plus-OJ breakfast trap

A typical bowl of frosted cereal carries about 12 grams of added sugar. An 8-ounce glass of orange juice carries another 22 grams. That is 34 grams before the school bus. The AHA cap for an age-7 child is 25 grams. One breakfast exceeds the entire daily ceiling. Lustig calls this the Froot Loops plus OJ trap: about 11 teaspoons of sugar in one sitting. The cereal sugar is on the label; the juice sugar tends to surprise parents. The fiber that would slow it down stays behind in the orange. The swap is small: plain whole-milk yogurt with berries, real rolled oats, eggs and fruit, leftovers, a whole orange in place of juice.

Red 40 and the color additives

The most common synthetic colors are Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Blue 1. They show up in cereal, candy, sports drinks, flavored yogurt, snack cakes, fruit snacks, and many children's medications. The 2021 California OEHHA review of pediatric trials concluded synthetic colors can affect attention and behavior in some children, at levels above what the FDA assumed in the 1970s. The EU requires a warning label on foods containing them. California's AB 2316 (2024) removes the major dyes from public school food by 2027. The FDA still has not acted on the petition to remove Red 3 from food, despite banning it in cosmetics in 1990. Casey Means offers a shelf-test: if a food wears a color nature does not make, the color came from a lab, and the food carrying it tends to be ultra-processed anyway.

Infant formula, named honestly

Infant formula, by NOVA's own definition, is ultra-processed food. Chris van Tulleken devotes a chapter to formula in Ultra-Processed People. The category sits in NOVA-4 because of how it is manufactured. That fact describes the product. It says nothing about the families who feed it to their babies. Many cannot breastfeed. Many have tried and grieved that they could not. Formula keeps babies alive and well. Skip the toddler formulas (no nutritional rationale). Pick FDA-regulated brands. The "European," "goat," and "organic" premium tiers do not deliver more nutrition than standard cow-milk-based formula.

How the scanner uses this

When you turn on Feed my kids well and set the age band, the verdict engine applies the threshold table above on top of any other goals you have running.

Hard rules (auto streak-breaker):

• Added sugar above the age-band daily cap, or any added sugar under age 2, or sugar in the top 2 ingredients for any child under 6.
• Sodium above the age-band daily cap in one product.
• Choking-hazard items (whole grapes, nuts, hard candy, raw carrot rounds, popcorn, hot dog rounds) under age 4.
• High-mercury fish (swordfish, king mackerel, tilefish, shark, bigeye tuna) at any age.
• Honey under 12 months. Fruit juice under 12 months.
• Raw milk, raw juice, raw sprouts, undercooked egg at any age.
• Any caffeine under age 6. Any sugar-sweetened beverage under age 18.

Soft rules:

• 100% fruit juice above the age-band cap.
• Any FDA-approved synthetic color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, Red 3, Green 3, Citrus Red 2, Orange B).
• NOVA Group 4 share trending above the age-band target across the day.
• Two or more industrial additives in a product served daily.
• Carb-to-fiber ratio worse than 10 to 1 in a kid-targeted product.

Bonuses: single-ingredient foods (whole fruit, plain dairy, eggs, fish, beans); low-mercury fish twice a week; plain water or plain milk as the default drink; family-meal-style eating where the child eats what the adults eat, scaled down.

Worked examples

• Gerber 2nd Foods pouch with added apple juice concentrate, age 9 mo. Streak-breaker. Added sugar at any amount under 2 is a hard rule. The puree is fine; the concentrate is the problem. Swap: plain fruit-only pouch or mashed banana.
• Honey Nut Cheerios, age 7. Streak-breaker. 12 g added sugar per cup; a typical bowl runs 1.5 cups. With 8 oz OJ that puts the day at 40 g before 8 a.m., over the 25 g cap.
• Lunchables Turkey and Cheddar, age 8. Streak-breaker. About 750 mg sodium per kit (40 percent of the cap in one snack), plus modified food starch and sodium phosphates trigger the NOVA-4 hard rule.
• Plain whole-milk Greek yogurt with fresh berries, age 4. Good enough. Single-ingredient dairy, whole fruit. Bonus.
• Whole apple, any age over 1. Good enough. Cut into wedges (not rounds) for kids under 4.
• Frozen fish stick, age 5. Check the label. Pollock, cod, or haddock is fine on mercury. The breading is usually NOVA-4: soft flag. Baked salmon at home hits the bonus path.
• Chocolate milk, age 3. Streak-breaker. 12-15 g added sugar per cup, and AHA does not want SSBs under 18.
• Chocolate milk, age 12. Soft flag. Within the 25 g cap if it is the only added-sugar source that day, but rarely is.
• 100% orange juice, 4 oz, age 2. Good enough by the cap. A whole orange is the better default.
• 100% apple juice, 8 oz, age 3. Streak-breaker on the juice cap (4-6 oz at that age).
• Fruit snacks with Red 40, age 6. Soft flag for the color, soft flag for added sugar outside a meal.

Related reading

• Life-stage nutrition. The full clinical picture by stage with DRIs and screening tools.
• Lower added sugar. Why added sugar matters at all. Kid thresholds are tighter.
• Cut ultra-processed food. NOVA Group 4 framework. Kid version uses a lower target share.
• The additive playbook. What synthetic colors and other additives are doing in food.
• Your microbiome and you. The first 1,000 days frame in more depth.

Sources

1. Lustig, R. (2021). Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine. Harper Wave. Chapters 15-16.
2. Mahan, L.K., & Raymond, J.L. (Eds.) (2022). Krause's Food and the Nutrition Care Process, 16th edition. Elsevier. Chapter 15 (McKean & Mazon, Seattle Children's).
3. van Tulleken, C. (2023). Ultra-Processed People. Knopf. Kid UPF share data and the chapter on formula.
4. Means, C. (2024). Good Energy. Avery. Synthetic color review, EU warning labels, California AB 2316.
5. Spector, T. (2022). Food for Life. Jonathan Cape. Chapter 11, first 1,000 days and microbial blueprint.
6. Vos, M.B., et al. (2017). Added Sugars and Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Children: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation 135(19): e1017-e1034. DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000000439.
7. Heyman, M.B., Abrams, S.A., et al. (2017). Fruit Juice in Infants, Children, and Adolescents: Current Recommendations. Pediatrics 139(6): e20170967.
8. FDA/EPA (2017, updated 2021). Advice About Eating Fish: For Those Who Might Become or Are Pregnant or Breastfeeding and Children Ages 1 to 11 Years.
9. Du Toit, G., et al. (2015). Randomized Trial of Peanut Consumption in Infants at Risk for Peanut Allergy. NEJM 372(9): 803-813. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1414850.
10. California OEHHA (2021). Health Effects Assessment: Potential Neurobehavioral Effects of Synthetic Food Dyes in Children.