Is Fruit Juice Bad For You?
If you’re trying to live a healthier lifestyle, you might consider dropping all sugary drinks in favor of fruit juice. However, there are some reasons and situations where fruit juice is bad for you. Fruit juice does have natural sugars, just like their fruit counterparts. Drinking too much will provide an overload of sugar without any of the benefits you get from the whole fruit.
Fruit juice in small amounts isn’t a problem.
If you have a small glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in the morning, you won’t be getting loads of sugar and still reap the benefits it contains. Don’t expect that switching out fruit juice for soda will help you to lose weight. Both a cup of soda and a cup of fruit juice contain about 20-26 grams of sugar and approximately 110 calories. That means that it adds as many calories as soda, it also puts you at a higher risk for type 2 diabetes, especially if you consume a cup several times a day. It also raises your risk for high blood pressure and heart disease.
Fruit juice acts slightly differently in the body than soft drinks do.
Soft drinks increase the risk of serious conditions based on how much you drink. The higher the intake, the more risk for disease you become. Even a little every day increases the risk. However, fruit juice actually helps the body when consumed in amounts of 5 ounces or less each day. In fact, that smaller amount can lower the risk for both heart disease and diabetes. If you’re drinking several glasses of fruit juice throughout the day, your risk for disease increases.
You’re better off eating the whole fruit than drinking just its juice.
Even if you have pulp added fruit juice, it’s not the same as eating the whole fruit. That’s because the whole fruit has more fiber. Consider how much juice you’ll get from squeezing one orange. A medium-sized orange contains about two ounces of juice, about four tablespoons. To get a five ounce glass of orange juice, which is small, you’d need two and a half oranges. Now, imagine how full you’d feel if you ate two and half oranges compared to drinking a five ounce glass of juice. There’s quite a difference.
- The fiber in whole fruit also has other health benefits, such as lowering your risk of diabetes and heart disease, not to mention how it helps keep your elimination system working well.
- Besides keeping you feeling fuller longer, the fiber in whole fruit also slows the absorption of sugar, so it lowers the possibility of blood sugar spikes. Some people have problems with sugar spikes when they drink fruit juice, but not with the whole fruit.
- When you drink fruit juice, rather than eat the fruit, you may be missing out on some important vitamins found in the pulp and skin (think grapes and apples) of the fruit. In oranges, the pulp has most of the flavonoids.
- While fruit juice is far better for you when you consider the added nutrients, the best choice is always to eat a piece of fruit and drink some water or infused water if you want more flavor.
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