Why you should drink less juice from now on. Juices may be sweet, but the bitter truth is: they are not healthy at all. This is how harmful fructose really is.
Cola, Fanta and Sprite are real sugar bombs. But juice is also extremely unhealthy in terms of sugar and calorie content, even though fruit juice is often marketed as a healthy thirst quencher. These 5 reasons why juice is unhealthy speak for themselves:
1. Juices have just as many calories as soft drinks
If you want to lose a few pounds, it makes no difference whether you drink juice or soft drinks. Juices usually have more calories than sugary soft drinks. Saving calories with juice? Not at all!
Fruit juice drinks and nectar from the supermarket also contain additional sugar. In other words, your blood sugar level rises significantly after a glass of orange juice, but then falls again even more quickly, which often ends in a binge . So if you want to lose weight, you’re better off staying away from juice.
Nevertheless, when it comes to vitamins and nutrients, freshly squeezed juices still have the edge. With your own juicer, you can easily make freshly squeezed juices at home.
2. Juices are not as healthy as pure fruit
“Fruit is healthy, so juice is too.” Sounds logical, but unfortunately it’s not true. From a nutritional point of view, fruit juice can never replace an apple or a kiwi. In order for fruit to become juice, one thing is required above all: high temperatures. When making juice, the fruit is chopped, pressed and pasteurized – all under high pressure and heat.
However, vitamins are sensitive to heat and are destroyed at high temperatures. In addition, many vitamins are found under the peel and are not usually released during pressing. In other words: The end product “juice” therefore contains far fewer vitamins, minerals, secondary plant substances and fiber than the corresponding fruit in its original form.
3. Fructose is not a “healthy” sugar
In addition to glucose (dextrose), fruit juice also contains fructose, the so-called fruit sugar. Since fructose – unlike glucose – is metabolized independently of insulin, the brain does not receive a satiety signal after a portion of fruit sugar. This means that you quickly consume more of it than your body needs. At the same time, large amounts of fruit sugar pose a great challenge to your body, as it has difficulty digesting it.
While you need glucose to produce insulin, your body does not depend on fructose and must first convert it into glucose in the intestines in order to be able to use it at all. Excess fructose ends up in the liver – where only waste products actually end up. If more fructose reaches the liver than it can process, the excess is converted into fat.
4. Fruit juice attacks tooth enamel
Sugar is known to be bad for your teeth and fructose is unfortunately no exception. If you drink fruit juice regularly, you are also damaging your teeth. The fruit acids cause particularly bad damage, attacking tooth enamel and, in the long term, can lead to tooth erosion. As a result, teeth become more sensitive and brittle over time, the cutting edges thin out and the chewing surfaces flatten.
5. Juice increases the risk of diabetes
A study by the Harvard School of Public Health found a few years ago that drinking too much juice can increase the risk of diabetes. The researchers also found that it makes a difference whether you eat your fruit in liquid or solid form. They also found that the risk of developing diabetes mellitus actually decreases if you eat at least 2 portions of fresh fruit per week.
What is the difference between juice and nectar?
Fruit juices are not really healthy, but of course there are good juices and not so good ones. But what requirements must actually be met for a juice to be called juice?
- Juice and direct juice: These juices must be 100 percent made from the pulp or juice of fruit or vegetables. Direct juice is pressed directly and bottled. Simple juice, on the other hand, is usually made using concentrate, which is much cheaper. The water is removed from the direct juice by heating it, which creates the concentrate. Juice is then made later from the concentrate and added water. But not only juice, direct juice is also heated to preserve the product.
- Fruit nectar: The nectar contains only 25 to 50 percent fruit, the rest is water. It can contain up to 20 percent added sugar to increase the sweetness. A juice that contains little fruit simply tastes less sweet.
- Fruit juice drinks: They are clearly the worst choice. The required fruit content is only 6 to 30 percent. In addition to sugar and water, depending on the manufacturer, a lot of additives such as colorings and artificial flavors end up in the fruit juice drink.
Which juices are really healthy?
A good alternative to regular juices are cold-pressed juices. Unlike juice, they contain significantly more healthy ingredients because no heat is used in the production process. Cold-pressed juices are also not pasteurized to make them last longer; special, much gentler processes are used here.
Conclusion: Juice spritzers are the better juices
As you can see, juices are not the best choice if you want to lose weight. But there are better alternatives for your teeth and liver. If you don’t want to miss out on your glass of juice for breakfast, then it’s best to reduce the amount of juice in the glass little by little. Soon, pure juice will seem so sweet that you’ll hardly be able to swallow it.
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