Let’s give credit where it’s due. With so many lifestyle diseases sounding alarm bells, young people are at least trying to stay fit. Whether or not it’s working is another issue. One such way is to eat and drink things that are sold as healthy products.
Fruit juice is one of them. And the perception of it being healthy is natural, given that it has the word ‘fruit’ in it. However, behind all that labelling, it’s still a sugary drink that’s not doing you much good.
In fact, fruit juice contains just as much sugar and calories as a sugary cold drink (and sometimes even more). And after all that processing, if there are any nutrients left in the drink, they do not make up for the volume of sugar.
Even '100% Juice' Is Artificial
It’s one of those things which everyone says “we always sort of knew” but ignored. Just think, how fresh can juice packaged in a container for months be?
Fruit juice made at home: squeeze fruit, get juice. Fruit juice made in factories: squeeze fruit, remove oxygen, re-flavour the now flavourless juice with artificial flavouring.
Even if the fruit juice you buy at stores is labelled “100% pure” and “not from concentrate,” it’s still artificial. After being squeezed from the fruit, oxygen is removed from the juice so that the liquid can go on for up to a year without getting spoilt.
The main problem with this method is that it tends to remove most of the flavour, so the manufacturers need to add the so-called "flavour packs” to the juice to bring back the flavour that was lost during processing.
So, the 100 percent juice is still 100 percent artificially flavoured.
Even if you're buying the highest quality juices at the supermarket, they are still far from their original state. Some of the lowest quality ones are basically just flavoured sugar water.
The Calories Outweigh Whatever Fruit Benefits It Has
Your regular can of 250ml fruit juice contains about 110 Calories (Kcal), which is the same amount as a large-sized chocolate chip cookie.
Whatever vitamins and calcium are there in the juices, you’re getting them at a high calorie cost, experts say.
It is definitely not the best thing for your blood sugar if you drink a lot of juice. In terms of calories, they are quite high and in some cases worse than soda. Not to mention, you feel that since it’s fruit juice, it’s good to drink more.
In fact, if you ate a fruit at 60 calories and drank a glass of water you’d be much better off than if you drank one glass of fruit juice at about 120 calories.
In addition to being a lower-calorie alternative, the whole fruit and glass of water also are a treat for your digestive system.
Speaking to The Quint, nutritionist and lifestyle expert Dr Pooja Sharma said:
Juice in general is not the most healthy thing among fruits and veggies. I always recommend people focus on eating whole fruits and veggies rather than juice. When you juice something, you are taking the fibers from the veggies and fruits which are a major benefit.
So, why not spare the time you spend in opening a bottle of fruit juice on having the actual fruit instead?
(This piece was first published on 4 September 2017.)
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