Is 100% Fruit Juice Good for You?

Drinking 100% fruit juice definitely seems like an ideal alternative on your well being, however that’s not essentially a 100% correct evaluation.

Sure, there are positives to ingesting fruit juice — beginning with a formidable checklist of nutritional vitamins and vitamins that fill each glass. But 100% fruit juice can be loaded with sufficient sugar to attract unflattering comparisons to soda.

Kind of unusual, proper? Well, to get a greater understanding of the professionals and cons of juice, let’s squeeze some data out of registered dietitian Beth Czerwony, RD.

What is 100% fruit juice?

If what you’re ingesting is 100% fruit juice, it’s principally liquid that has been pressed, squeezed or in any other case extracted from fruit. Glance on the diet labels on these bottles and you need to see acquainted fruit names.

Drinks with a decrease share of fruit juice — 10%, for instance — carry totally different labeling. You’ll discover these on the shelf beneath names corresponding to fruit cocktail, drink, punch or the unique sounding nectar.

Check the ingredient checklist on these bottles and also you’ll in all probability see added sweeteners corresponding to high-fructose corn syrup.

Benefits of 100% fruit juice

Fruit juice incorporates most of the nutritional vitamins and vitamins that make fruit a beneficial a part of a nutritious diet. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends consuming about 2 cups of fruit per day.

What is a “cup” of fruit? Glad you requested! If fruit is in its pure type, that’s roughly equal to a big orange or banana, a small apple or eight strawberries.

When juiced, a cup of fruit is … effectively, an 8-ounce cup of juice. (We’ll come again to that quantity.)

Is ingesting fruit juice the identical as consuming complete fruit?

The quick reply isn’t any. Some of the fabulous advantages of fruit disappear in the course of the juicing course of. The largest loss is in fiber content material, a perk of complete fruit that’s nice on your digestive system.

Whole fruit additionally provides you extra of a full-belly feeling than juice given the “fruit meat” you devour. That means you’ll be much less apt to get hungry half-hour later and begin foraging for snacks.

“You get so much more than just juice when eating whole fruit,” notes Czerwony. “It’s not the same thing.”

Sugar in 100% fruit juice

Many forms of fruit are filled with pure sugars — one of many causes fruit is usually dubbed “nature’s candy.” When you juice fruit, you focus that sugar into one extraordinarily sippable drink.

Think of it this manner, says Czerwony: It may take the juice of 5 or 6 oranges to fill a cup. That’s a number of sugary fluid, which may trigger a direct spike in blood sugar ranges.

Let’s put some numbers to it. A glass of orange juice incorporates about 23 grams of sugar — which isn’t far off the each day restrict of sugar beneficial by the American Heart Association. (The AHA recommends not more than 36 grams of sugar for males and 25 grams for ladies.)

“So, a single cup of orange juice basically has all the sugar you should have in a day,” says Czerwony. “And how many of us only have an 8-ounce glass of juice? It’s usually more.”

100% fruit juice vs. soda

The high-sugar content material in juice practically matches what’s present in sugary sodas, which aren’t precisely identified for being wholesome. (The nutritional vitamins in juice make the drink higher for you than soda, in fact.)

“But if you’re looking at it from a sugar perspective, they’re basically one and the same,” notes Czerwony.

Should you drink 100% juice?

Is sugar in juice a little bit of a priority? You wager. But there’s additionally the fact that many individuals merely don’t fill their eating regimen with a lot fruit.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) studies that solely about 12% of adults within the United States devour the beneficial quantity of fruit per day. Juice consumption is included within the tally.

So, in some ways, consuming too little fruit stands as a much bigger concern than individuals ingesting an excessive amount of 100% fruit juice.

“Juice is an easy way to add servings of fruit to your diet, and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a glass,” says Czerwony. “The key is moderation. Just make sure you’re not overdoing it.”