I know what you are thinking, a recipe for fruit punch? Is she for real? How hard can it be?

As it turns out, when you need to control salicylate load and artificial ingredients, it is surprisingly challenging.

I discovered this while hanging out for half an hour in the juice aisle of my local Whole Foods which was actually the THIRD grocery store I had visited in search of a fruit juice made entirely from pomegranate, passion fruit, pear, banana or mango juices since these are pretty much the only fruits allowed on the diet. As it turns out things marked pear juice contain apples (yes red and yellow delicious apples are allowed, but since all other varieties are questionable and juice is a concentrated product…no apple juice) and virtually everything contained grape juice.

Now there is such a thing as pure pomegranate juice, but I defy you to get a six year old to drink it. It is pretty sour, especially by grade school preferences.

So after spending at least 10 minutes doing my best impersonation of a self-absorbed nightmare Whole Foods shopper standing there blocking the aisle and reading every last container of juice, I discovered a single brand that did not contain any apple juice, grape juice or other offending juices. The brand is called Ceres and it has a mango flavor that contains only mangoes and pears and a passion fruit that is also clean.

Since I am the mother of a good eater, he will drink any of these (except for pure pomegranate) but for those of you with pickier eaters who want a safe beautifully colored fruit punch, here is the easy recipe.

Ingredients

1/4 cup pure pomegranate juice
3/4 cup Ceres mango juice

Instructions
Mix beverages together

If your child likes something sweeter, you can always add actual sugar (not honey as honey is out) or increase the mango beverage.

We also like the passion fruit juice as it adds a bit of depth to the flavor. It is not as sweet as the mango nor as tart as the pomegranate. For now we are drinking the passion fruit flavor as is…but who knows

If anyone knows of other juices, let me know.

Other people want to use that juice aisle at Whole Foods ya know.