Juice: Danger Zone?

Juice: To Drink or Not to Drink

My Prof was talking about sugar (refined) & fructose (the sugar in fruit) drinks today and I thought his question was interesting:

"Would you sit down and eat 2-3 oranges?" Ah for me no.

Yes organic juices and some natural juices have great nutritional benefits, they can be loaded with minerals & vitamins.
Lets look at Orange Juice:
Vitamins: C - aka ascorbic acid, functions as a antioxidant helps protect cells, assists in formation of collagen, helps assist in wound healing and can decrease (LDL) bad cholesterol.

B1 - Thiamine, assists the nervous system and heart muscle and regulates the appetite.

Folate - (Natural form of Folic Acid) - Helps with red blood cell production, can help prevent cervical dysplasia, enhances energy and stamina.

Having said all that, this information is based on 100% pure organic orange juice, that has not been concentrated, fortified or compromised.

 Sound great so far Right?  However, with juices, when the pulp is stripped away the absorption of the natural sugar (fructose) is much faster, therefore the pancreas has to work much harder secreting insulin to bring your blood sugar back down.

See the article below by Dr. Silverman below.

Again Food for Thought you decide, I say have a glass of water and an orange or, cut the juice with water & always buy organic when possible:)




By Dr. Robyn J.A. Silverman
www.DrRobyn’sBlog.com

How much sugar is in juice?

It can be confusing. After all, juice comes from fruit and fruit is good for us. It’s one of our food groups! Many juices have antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals—so shouldn’t we give our kids a lot of it? In this case, too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

The amount of sugar in juice depends on the brand and type of fruit juice we’re discussing. For example;

• Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice and Apple and Eve Clear Apple Juicecontain 22 grams of sugar per 8 ounce glass. Since four grams of sugar is in a teaspoon then an 8 ounce glass of orange juice would have 5 ½ teaspoons of natural sugar in it
• Juicy Juice has 26 grams of sugar in an 8 ounce glass, which means that it has 6 ½ teaspoons of natural sugar in it.
• Minute Maid Fruit Medley (which does have some added ingredients) has 32 grams of sugar per 10 ounce bottle. That’s 8 teaspoons of sugar.

These juices say 100% juice and therefore do not add additional sugar—fruit is simply sweet and contains “fruit sugar” (n : a simple sugar found in honey and in many ripe fruits [syn: fructose, levulose, laevulose]).

The medical world is quick to remind us that “it’s much healthier to eat the fruit rather than drink the juice. For example, a 12-ounce glass of orange juice, which is the juice of two to three oranges, has about 180 calories . But eating one orange is only 80 or 90 calories and it does more to fill you up.” (University of California, San Francisco, Children’s Hospital)