Juices are everywhere these days. Stroll down the aisles of any grocery or convenience store and you’ll find a seemingly endless assortment of juices for sale, from mango-melon to strawberry-kiwi to carrot-apple-ginger.
The good news is that fruit and vegetable juices are full of antioxidants that can help fight diseases such as cancer, obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Indeed, easy-to-swallow juices can count toward the five servings of fruit and vegetables that the National Cancer Institute recommends we get every day.
But there is a downside: Juices can also add lots of extra calories to your eating plan in a hurry. And not all juices are equally healthful.
Buyer Beware
When selecting a juice, buyer beware: many so-called juices contain little real juice and have more added sugar than anything else. So read the label carefully. Your best choice is one that is 100% fruit or vegetable juice — not a “juice drink,” “fruit flavored drink” or a sugar-heavy “blend.”
And even when it is 100% juice, remember that juices lack the fiber of whole fruit. So juice should count for only one of your five recommended servings of fruit or veggies a day. Also keep in mind that some juices use concentrated white grape juice as a sweetener, making them higher in simple sugars and calories even though they can still truthfully claim to be 100% fruit juice.
Don’t get me wrong — pure fruit juice is nutritious as well as delicious, containing a whole host of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytochemicals. It’s much better than drinking a soda.
But even pure fruit juices are high in naturally occurring simple sugars. So unless you eat them along with other foods, they can send your blood sugar soaring (and leave you feeling hungry when it comes back down again). That’s why diabetics often use orange juice for a quick fix for low blood sugar.
And those natural sugars can add up to lots of calories. A glass of fruit juice ranges from 100 (orange, grapefruit, apple) to 170 (grape and prune) calories for an 8-ounce serving.
It’s easy to overdo them, because it’s much easier to drink 12 ounces of orange juice than it is to eat two oranges. Whole fruit is more filling because it also contains the fiber that helps slow down digestion, making it more satisfying.
The keys to enjoying juices while making the most of the calories on your eating plan are:
- Choosing water when you need something to quench your thirst.
- Controlling your juice portion sizes.
- Enjoying whole fruits and vegetables more often than juices.