Fruit juice isn't much better for you than soda.

[anunitu]

You had to know this was coming...
Story. (http://www.vox.com/2016/3/25/11305614/soda-juice-energy-drink-consumption-nutrition)

One of the biggest public health wins of recent decades has been America's slow shift away from soda.

With more awareness about the very strong correlation between guzzling fizzy drinks and obesity and tooth decay, sales of beverages like Coca-Cola and Pepsi have slumped.

But there's pretty good evidence that Americans are still getting hoodwinked by juices and other sugary beverages.

My Fanta Orange for the win...I still like V-fusion though.

[thalassa]

The problem with fruit juice is that it is often sweetened, has way too much of a fruit-to-water ratio, and let's be real, when you lose the fruit part (the pulp) you lose the fiber.

[anunitu]

You,I trust on the matter Thal..cause I know you know stuff,that and you would never sugar coat(pun) anything..:cool:

- - - Updated - - -

Also,you read way more than any chatty Cathy I have ever known...Damn spring is here,along with those darn stink bugs,If the temp goes past a certain point,bam,there they are...

[Medusa]

I get this at work. Why don't drink this juice. It's better for you! And I'm like what don't you under....stand? Sugar, even natural is bad for Diabetics.

That's why we are allowed to drink all the coffee and no sweetened iced tea. I have juice just as an emergency. Not even that half the sugar stuff. It's still just full of sugar. I'd rather just eat the piece of fruit with the sugar than drink it I guess.

[Jembru]

Health claims aside, I've just never seen the point of juice. Shop bought is just flavour without any of the appetite suppression of eating the whole fruit that at least spends a little longer in my stomach. As for blending my own fruit drinks... I have a bullet that can juice but it's way too much effort for way too little reward. I'd much rather just eat the fruit and let my stomach do the hard part.

Also... who's adding sugar to fruit juice? I was curious so checked the fruit juices in the fridge here at work (all tesco, from concentrate and with details on the side about how only water is added, and nothing removed). Is this a US thing?

I'm sure I've said this before when juicing has come up, but if my drink is high in calories and sugar, it had better have alcohol in it! I'm not kidding. I usually only drink water, tea or coffee.

[thalassa]

Sometimes I don't want to drink water. I slice up the fruit and do an infused water instead.

[Rae'ya]

Also... who's adding sugar to fruit juice? I was curious so checked the fruit juices in the fridge here at work (all tesco, from concentrate and with details on the side about how only water is added, and nothing removed). Is this a US thing?

It's also an Australian thing. LOTS of juice companies add sugar, though there is a growing number of brands that don't add sweeteners of any sort. We also have a number of brands who do cold pressed, 'five organic oranges and six blueberries went into this juice' blah blah type juice, but it's expensive. Most juices that you can buy in big family bottles are from concentrate with suger and numbers added in.

[DragonsFriend]

In the USA it has to be called a "drink" rather than juice if it has added sugar and other ingredients. Our juice is all juice but it might have a mixture of different juices in it. Peach juice often has pear juice in it so it isn't as thick as peach nectar. Fruit from concentrate has few vitamins or nutrients of any kind because of the heat they use to remove the water. Juice from fruit has most of the nutrients in it though some is lost in the pasteurization process. Pasteurization is quickly raising the temperature to some degree, holding it there long enough to kill the harmful bacteria and then rapidly cooling it. This process can remove between 50 and 80% of the vitamins as well as killing helpful bacteria and rendering some enzymes useless. Fresh squeezed juices are healthier but also carry dangers of contamination with E. Coli, and other harmful bacteria unless the fruit is washed and rinsed well before juicing. Even pasteurized juice is better than soda or other drinks.

[annmariya]

Soda water is better than fresh juice. Fresh juice contain harmful things than nutrients. It contain more sugar and other hidden ingredients than nutrients. Soda water is better than fresh juice. It has the hydrating property like mineral water.

[anunitu]

Not sure what you mean by "Soda water"...sparkling water?

[DanieMarie]

Also... who's adding sugar to fruit juice? I was curious so checked the fruit juices in the fridge here at work (all tesco, from concentrate and with details on the side about how only water is added, and nothing removed). Is this a US thing?


In North America (and Australia, apparently), things are generally sweeter. I never noticed it when I was growing up, but after I moved to Germany and went back to visit, it was glaringly obvious. Stuff like flavoured yogurt, juice, and even stuff that's supposed to be really sweet like cake has WAY more sugar in it than stuff on this side of the world. British and continental European people have a different understanding of "sweet," and fruit on its own is usually enough. In North America, they're so used to syrupy sweet flavours that they add sugar to a lot of things that we don't.

I'm a label reader because of my allergies, and there is sugar in a shocking amount of stuff in Canada and the US.

[anunitu]

Interesting thing,My GM(The French Canadian one) Used to eat grapefruit with sugar on it,also same with cottage cheese. I prefer both of them with no sugar.

Also as a kid I was used to cereal with sugar,but these days I like it without.

[anubisa]

The only juice I use is for my smoothies and is Unsweetened Cranberry Juice. I regularly drink water. Fruit juices, I agree, typically are sweetened in the U.S. for some reason. They shouldn't be, the fruit is sweet and good enough in my opinion. If it is, it should be with natural sweeteners, not these aspartame or things like that.

[Hawkfeathers]

I'm a black coffee, tea, and a water drinker. Once in a blue moon a low-sodium V-8, and a diet soda about twice a year. The only time sugar really gets used here is when making the hummingbird feeder mix.

[anunitu]

I only use sugar in my coffee along with half and half..Only reason I even have it in the place.

[DanieMarie]

I actually drink juice a lot, but only because I get 6 bottles of it per month as part of my food co-op. I usually mix it with sparkling water, especially if it's quince juice. Even though it's all locally and traditionally made and does not contain sugar, quince are insanely sweet fruits. I can't even drink quince juice 50/50 with water. it has to be 1/3 juice and 2/3 water.

[anunitu]

I have heard the name quince,but never tasted it(Is it really THAT sweet?) In the US we tend to be addicted to sugar in everything. and sold on artificial sweeteners to get away from sugar,bur it has been shown that AS are as bad for you as sugar anyway.

Story on AS here. (http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/food-nutrition/facts/artificial-sweetners-unhealthy-eco.htm)

From the site:
Why Artificial Sweeteners are Bad For You and the Planet

[DanieMarie]

Yeah they're really sweet. They also have a really distinctive flavour. I like them, but it's easy to get sick of them after a while. I didn't get that many from the co-op save the juice, but my mother-in-law's neighbour apparently has a tree and always wants to unload them on other people because he doesn't like them. After I said I liked them, I was told I'd get a bundle next season.

[anunitu]

As a kid,there was this lady that had a plum tree in her front yard,more for decoration,and she let us gather plums so they did not fall on her lawn and mess it up. was good for us because we got a LOT of plums,and she got her front yard clear. We took the plums home and shared them with neighbors.

[thalassa]

something else to think about on the artificial sweetener front is that it changes your brain
(http://www.npr.org/2013/07/12/201461166/not-so-sweet-side-effects-of-artificial-sweeteners)

[anunitu]

I knew it!!!...I dislike AS's as a rule(nasty after taste,and they give me mean headaches too)

[DragonsFriend]

I don't know what kind of juice you other folks in the US are buying but all my juice contains only fruit juice. There is nothing else listed in the ingredients. There aren't even preservatives added. I do know that when making juice they blend different fruits to get the sweetness that they want. In orange juice, for example they use a mixture of different types of oranges to get the desired taste. In apple juice they use different kinds of apples and a lot of "water core" apples that have a higher sugar content to get the taste the same. None of the juices that we use have sugar added or anything but juice in them. I read labels too and watch what is added and try to stay away from preservatives, added salt and sugar. That is why we grow our vegetables and why I bake my own bread products. Maybe the higher cost fruit juices add the sugar because I buy the cheap stuff and there is nothing in it but fruit juice.

[DanieMarie]

I think the issue is that most juice "drinks" are still understood as "juice." It IS hard to tell the difference. Often the same brands make both. It's not just a Canadian thing either, because I've been grocery shopping in the US before.

The other issue is that juice is still loaded with sugar, even when no extra sugar is added. The kinds of fruits (or even varieties of a single fruit like apples) matters as well....some have WAY more sugar in them than others. I know that the apple juice in North America is WAY sweeter than the stuff I get in Europe, even when neither has any sugar added. It's the same deal as the quince. Some fruit varieties have way more sugar in them.

[DragonsFriend]

OK, maybe we should recognize the difference between Fructose, Glucose and Sucrose or just lump all the monosaccharides together and all the disaccharides in a different lump.
Table sugar is a disaccharide while Fructose is a monosaccaride. The natural sugars in fruit are nearly all fructose.

[DanieMarie]

I know that. But too much sugar of any kind is not good for you.

[thalassa]

Sucrose is glucose+fructose--the glucose and fructose are bound together with an oxygen molecule (this is called a glycosidic linkage), which yes, makes it a disaccharide (which just means "two sugars"). Hydrolysis breaks the bond between these and forms the separate glucose and fructose molecules--this process occurs in the presence of even a weak acid...making the stomach more than just a little bit up to the job.

Plants contain a mix of glucose and fructose, and glucose and fructose bound as sucrose. The molecular structure and composition of sugar is pretty much the same whether they are from fruit or little white granules (table sugar, after all, is a plant derivative from the sugar cane or sugar beet, or some other plants such as the sugar maple and date palm)--the amount of sugar in a particular fruit depends on the type of fruit (cranberry is 20% while pears are 70%), with most fruits in the 40-55% fructose range (with the rest as glucose). Table sugar is straight 50/50. Sucrose (as well as unbounded fructose and glucose) is found in the roots, (nearly all) fruits, nectars, and (less often) stems of plants--the fruit exception being relatively tart fruits such as lemons or tomatoes(and a few others).

Neither is better or worse for you, they (fructose and glucose) are just metabolized differently. The importance of fruit (over fruit juice) has to do with the fiber--fiber slows glucose digestion, making it less like doing a keg-stand on an empty stomach and more like sipping a glass of wine with dinner.

The problem comes from the fact that sugar used to be a luxury item. And Americans are notoriously bad at moderation. As luxury items required less luxury (combined with a culture that values over-the-top indulgence), tastes changed. The change in tastes shows up no so much in added sugar (as in someone dumping actual sugar into the mix), but in higher sugar content to begin with--all of our fruit today is far sweeter (having been bred for higher sugar content) than heirloom varieties, a common practice is to concentrate the juice (it stores better and longer) and redilute it (to whatever sugar content sells best), etc.

Its sugar from fruit, yes....but its not fruit sugar in any concentration that we evolved to consume it. In the same way that a teacup poodle and a great dane are both dogs...

[Medusa]

How many oranges to make an 8 oz glass of just squeezed juice?
Let's say one large orange has about 17 grams of sugar. That's just from the nutrition website.
Let's say maybe 4 oranges? Again from a random website.
68 grams of sugar.
sugar in any form, in any variety wrapped in a piece of fruit or coming from a can of coke is still bad for Diabetics. And if enough of it is in your baba, it's gonna rot your teeth. Natural fruit or not. Great you get some nutritional benefits. I'm all for that. But just because it comes naturally in a peeled form doesn't mean it's not just...sugar.

[thalassa]

How many oranges to make an 8 oz glass of just squeezed juice?
Let's say one large orange has about 17 grams of sugar. That's just from the nutrition website.
Let's say maybe 4 oranges? Again from a random website.
68 grams of sugar.
sugar in any form, in any variety wrapped in a piece of fruit or coming from a can of coke is still bad for Diabetics. And if enough of it is in your baba, it's gonna rot your teeth. Natural fruit or not. Great you get some nutritional benefits. I'm all for that. But just because it comes naturally in a peeled form doesn't mean it's not just...sugar.

Absolutely.

But, when I make "orange juice", I take about 10 clementimes (6.8g) and 1-2 lemons and juice them, pour the juice into a gallon pitcher, fill the pitcher the rest of the way up with water, and then slice up another orange or two and put them in the pitcher. Then that 68 grams of sugar (+/- a few grams--generally I use clementines which are sweeter but smaller) is distributed over 16 8-oz servings--it comes to just under 5g of sugar per serving. When Tropicana makes orange juice, its significantly sweeter.

^not that this addresses the issue that for some people, even relatively small amounts of sugar can be bad, regardless of where it comes from

ETA: Because, as usual....the dose makes the poison. And, individual variability varies individually.

[anunitu]

And as Duce mentioned,for her and the diabetes even that much dilution would not cut the sugar enough for her. I like Juice(real squeezed) but in small doses.
I will admit I drink more Soda than I should,but coffee is my main drink(I do not drink soda with caffeine BTW)I like orange Fanta.
Not much for milk anymore,except in coffee.
I do like the V-Fusion stuff with Vegies and fruit together.
Remember however,I am at an age where I have little time to be going all Kale and Mush to keep me healthy,I want to enjoy my golden years,and eat pretty much what I want,not need.

Bring on the chocolate!!!!

[Medusa]

In my world, juice only comes at the bottom of a glass and then it's all water from there. It's always been that way in my family since most of us are diabetics. I tried doing the half the calorie 'lite' cranberry juice' in the beginning of my diagnosis. Still full of it. So most nutritionists (for Diabetics) will have menu plans and it's always coffee and tea. Even when hot we do the iced coffee and teas of course. But juice is always in the house for when my sugar tanks and I'm in need. So yay for juice!

[anunitu]

had that when one of my fellow workers was diabetic and he went out from low blood sugar..had to give him candy or juice to bring him back out,but only enough to bring his sugar back to normal levels. He had told most of us how to help if this happened.