How healthy are juices?
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Fruit, Snacking and Kid's nutrition
A while back Cooking Chat asked a question in the comments on my post about antioxidant supplements – are juices a good way to get your daily fruit serves?
I can totally understand the attraction of juice – they’re sweet, easy to consume, tasty, no fussy cutting up or messy fingers at the end, you can buy them anywhere and they’re made from fruit, so they must be good for you? However, it’s not that simple.
Fruit is part of a healthy diet because of its vitamin, antioxidant and fibre content. Fruit also contributes small but useful amounts of potassium and nutritional guidelines recommend two or three pieces of fruit per day.
When you juice fruit you get most of the antioxidants, vitamins and potassium out. But you only get most, not all all of them. Moreover, juice doesn’t contain any of the fibre from the fruit, that goes down the waste tube.
However, the big problem with juice is that drop for drop, millilitre for millilitre juice contains as many kilojoules as soft drinks. Yep, that apple juice you’re drinking has as many kilojoules as a bottle of cola . While juice does contain vitamins and antioxidants and not the chemical cocktail that makes up cola, if you’re trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, then you have to be careful with the juice.
If you’re someone that has a glass of juice with breakfast, a bottle of juice at lunch and then another glass in the evening, you’re easily consuming 1,000 – 1,500 kilojoules in drinks alone. You could have a cheese and salad sandwich and an apple for the same amount of kilojoules, or five Weet-bix with skim milk and an orange.
In contrast one banana will give you plenty of vitamins and antioxidants, lots of potassium, plus all the fibre, for only 250kJ. It also costs less.
I use juices as an occasional treat, rather than an every day drink. If I’m out and about and busy I might get a juice, but I’ll make it 75% vegetable, with only a bit of fruit added in. On the weekends I might squeeze a couple of oranges and have a small glass of juice with my scrambled eggs on toast. The rest of the time I stick to water or herbal tea.
Ideas on how to fit more fruit in your day here .
Technorati tags: juice , fruit , soft drinks
28 March, 2007
Comments
Thanks Kathryn. I have started drinking fresh vegetable juice and am curious about how healthy it actually is. Are you saying vege juice contains less sugar and more fibre than fruit juice? Is it suitable for more regular consumption than you suggest fruit juice is?
[...] Limes & Lycopene « How healthy are juices? [...]
[...] As I’ve blogged about, juices are not necessarily all they’re cracked up to be. Yes, they contain vitamins and antioxidants, but that’s mixed up with a whole lot of kilojoules and no fibre. 1 glass of orange juice (ie 250ml) is more than 500 kilojoules, which is equal to: [...]
Hi there Andrew thanks for the question. Vegie juices are better – fewer kilojoules, plenty of antioxidants, BUT still no fibre. I’m half way through a post on the subject – check back Tuesday or Wednesday for the full story.
[...] In amongst the anti-fruit-juice posts this week, Andrew asked whether vegetable juices were any different? We tend to lump fruit and vegies together in our heads and nutritionally they do have similarities. However there are a number of key differences, which makes including both of them in our diet important to our health. It also means that vegetables are a much better juicing option. [...]
[...] So if fruit is good for us, what about fruit juices? This is what Kathryn has to say about fruit: [...]
Hi. I heard the same story on the radio. However, if you are not that concerned about the kilojoules, would the juices be a good choice there?
“While juice does contain vitamins and antioxidants and not the chemical cocktail that makes up cola, if you’re trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, then you have to be careful with the juice.”
After all, a lot of the goodies from fruit are still there. We eat leafy veggies and get fibre that way, and juice is usually part of our daily breakfast, not a constant snack (usually). Is Kilojoules the only reason NOT the consume juice all the time?
Hi there Debbie. You’re right the main reason not to consume juices is the kilojoule content, so if you’re in a healthy weight range and are active, then it’s less of a problem.
I don’t generally recommend them as a regular drink for kids though – it’s much better to set up the long-term habit of water being the primary drink. Plus, while you get MOST of the nutrients from fruit, in the juice, you don’t get ALL of them, so it is best to still eat some fruit on a daily basis.
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