Conventional wisdom has always been that drinking pure fruit juice is healthy. Most folks start their days with a large glass of OJ —for the vitamin C— thinking that it is great for their health and even help with their weight loss. They also think that “pure fruit juice” is the healthy alternative for their kids.
Many pepole ‘juice’ vegetables and fruit to craft the perfect healthy drink. Whether it is store bought or freshly made at home, pure fruit juice should be great for us, right? Although you may have thought you were making a healthier choice over sodas, you may be drinking something equally as bad.
Contrary to popular thinking, pure fruit juice is not far from a drink made of pure liquid sugar. It’s not much better than drinking a soda.
The Sugar That Comes From Fruit Is fructose!
Fructose is the same sugar which is used to produce high fructose corn syrup. Although fructose is natural, it is not a healthy sweetener. Fructose is a non-essential dietary sugar which is undoubtedly bad news for your waistline. Fructose is actually known to be a strong contributor to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and high triglycerides and LDL cholesterol. Additionally, it is considered to have some definite ties to cancer. While it’s okay to enjoy an occasional low-carb fruit —because you are not getting large, concentrated quantities of fructose—, drinking fruit juice loaded with tons of fructose will lead you definitely down a path of poor health.
Let’s say, you are drinking a 12 oz glass of orange juice. You hit your system with a whopping 37 grams of sugar in the form of mostly fructose.
How about a 12 oz glass of apple juice? You are gulping down an astronomical 40g of sugar!
But wait, that’s not the worst of it. A12 oz glass of grape juice contains almost 60g of sugar!
That’s like having a can and a half of soda! Pure fruit juices and mixed juice cocktails are two of the most fattening things you can put in your body. If you want to reduce the chances that your child will be obese or develop type 2 diabetes, eliminate the juice drinks, according to this study and this study.
Read more about fructose and other sugars here: The Case of Sugar
Drinking a Mixed Juice ‘Cocktail’ Is No Better!
Even if a mixed juice ‘cocktail’ may contain only pure fruit juice, most often concentrated white grape juice, or apple juice is added for sweetness. That adds even more sugar to the mix! Check out the sugar grams in Tropicana Berry Punch, or Ocean Spray 100% Cranberry Juice.
There are massive amounts of sugar, NO fibers, very little vitamin C, antioxidants or anything else of benefit in a bottle fruit juice.
Why Is Fructose So Bad?
Fructose is NOT a form of sugar which our cells can use as an energy source. Our cells do NOT use fructose for energy. Consequently, fructose does not trigger insulin response (insulin is the key for glucose to enter the cells as energy source, not fructose), thus is not even detected in the blood stream. The perfect recipe for quick weight gain.
When consumed, fructose gets sent straightaway to the liver for processing and it is quickly turned into fat cells.
In the past centuries, folks used to eat a lot of fruits during the Fall harvest season in order to to put on body fat reserves which would help to survive during long winter months with less food.
Most of the new fat cells converted from fructose are stored in the liver, creating a fast track to fatty liver disease. The rest of those fat cells turn into triglycerides —one of the precursors for heart disease— and with the help of insulin, these fat cells are quickly stored in various parts of the body —belly, hips, thighs, etc. This study shows that just one glass of grape juice a day caused insulin resistance and increased waist size in just three months. Not only that, but 2 servings of juice a day also doubles your chance for developing painful gout.
How Are Fruit Juices Produced?
Let us begin telling you that the fruits —even 100% juice— do not get squeezed or pressed straight from the farm into a carton. They first undergo a series of industrial processes which reduce the beneficial antioxidants, enzymes, and other healthy compounds, and remove most of the flavor; as an example, orange juice is picked from the orchards, the juice extracted out, heated and pasteurized, and then stored in gigantic vats, where the oxygen is removed so it can be stored for a year or more. Prior to packaging/bottling, “flavor packs” made from chemically altered orange byproducts are added to the processed juice to make it taste like orange again.
‘Healthy’ fruit juice smoothies are no different. They are also heated and pasteurized, lose their antioxidants and vitamins, and “filler” high sugar juices like apple and grape juice are added to make them taste better. Most often, they are more “high sugar” fillers than actual whole frui and not much more in a so-called ‘healthy’ smoothie you buy from the store.
Drink Water When You Are Thirsty!
You can make your own flavored waters by using reverse osmosis filtered spring and structured water. Chop up an orange or drop in a few raspberries, or slice up a cucumber, a lemon or lime wedge for added flavor.
And if you just can’t do without lots of flavor, drink fermented kombucha tea loaded with gut-healing probiotics, cancer-fighting compounds, and phytochemicals. Just watch the sugar content as some could still have some added sugar. Most brands have anywhere from 2 grams to 8 grams of sugar in 1 cup of kombucha. You can read about the health benefits of drinking kombucha (including weight loss, gut health, and more) following this link.
If you’re active, sweat a lot, or following a low-carb or Keto diet, with intermittent fasting, then you might at times become low on electrolytes. Do NOT turn to drinks like Gatorade or any of the other junk “hydration” drinks that are loaded with sugar, artificial sweeteners & colors and poor quality salt. Try LMNT .
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