To Juice or not to Juice??

Health and Fitness Tip

I remember sitting in on a discussion such as this when it came to assuring people were getting the most out of their nutrition and what benefited the most. Juicing was one of the discussions on topic.

It wasn’t until downloading the Fooducate app and it sending informational articles, such as this one, that it reminded me of this topic and wanted to share if you were one who currently or is thinking of drinking their fruits and or vegetables…

Juicing is Not the Right Way to Get More Fruits and Vegetables into Your Diet

Juicing and juice bars have become super trendy in the last decade. “Organic”, “Cold pressed”, “Fresh”, “Detox”, and other buzzwords entice people to part with $5 or more per hit of a purported panacea. Unfortunately, this is not a good strategy.

In short, juicing concentrates calories and diminishes nutrients. Think about this: It’s much harder to eat 5 oranges than it is to drink them as juice. A single orange has 45 calories, most of them from 9 grams of sugar. It also has 2 grams of fiber. A small cup of orange juice has 110 – 120 calories but less than 1 gram of fiber. Juicing gets rid of the fiber and concentrates lots of sugar.

Besides fiber, other nutrients tend to quickly disappear from juices once a fruit loses its protective sheath. Did you know that vitamin C is added to the orange juice you buy in a carton?

If you do juice, please try to do the following:

  • minimize your use of fruit and add mostly green vegetables
  • drink your juice fresh
  • keep the portion size small
  • keep eat whole vegetables and fruits as well
  • make juice an infrequent treat, not a daily ritual.


Source: American College of Cardiology – ACC Prevention Council Perspective Aims to Debunk Nutrition Myths – 2017

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