It seems like the perfect answer to getting yourself off of sugary drinks and away from all their bad health effects. If you switch to fruit juices, like orange juice or apple juice, not only will you get something sweet and refreshing to quench your thirst or wash down your meals, you’ll get all the great health benefits of the fruit.
Except the fact is that drinking fruit juice can be just as bad for you as sugary soft drinks, or even worse.
Why Drinking Fruit Juice is Bad For You
Yes, fruit juice consumption can give you many of the vitamins and minerals that you get from servings of fruit, but drinking juice is not the same as eating fruit for two main reasons.
- Even 100% Fruit Juice Can Be Very High in Sugar – If you check the nutrition labels on juice packages, you’ll notice levels of sugar that are comparable to other sugary beverages. Here’s an example:
a. 355 ml of 100% apple juice contains 42 grams of sugar and 180 calories.
b. 355 ml of Coca Cola contains 39 grams of sugar and 140 calories.
Yes, true that the sugars in the Coke are all added, and the apple juice contains naturally-occuring sugars. But, as they occur in fruit juice, even natural sugars can be just as bad for you as added sugars, and the next point tells you why.
2. There’s Little or No Fibre in Fruit Juice – The natural sugars in a piece of fruit are held within the fibre of the fruit. That fact means there are two huge differences between drinking a naturally sugar-sweetened beverage like juice, and eating a piece of fruit.
First, the fiber in real fruit slows down the delivery of sugars to your liver, and it delivers them in smaller amounts, versus a sudden rush of lots of sugar from even 100 percent juice.
Second, fruit fiber fills you up so you get far less sugar than drinking just one juice per day. Eating even one apple or orange can make you feel full. But a serving of fruit juice, which may contain the sugar equivalent of several pieces of fruit, may not fill you up, which can leave you wanting more.
The fact that fruit juice can be just as bad for you as sugary drinks means that drinking it can expose you to the same increased risk of health problems too, including weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
Visit your nearest Herbal One location to talk to a nutrition consultant and learn more about a healthy diet plan to help you better manage your weight and health.
If you enjoyed this post, check out our recent article about how much fiber you need every day.