Our quest for healthier food choices is a constant challenge, as we become constantly bombarded by insinuations and facts that would suggest what we may have previously thought to be healthy food is in fact not.
According to a professor and a doctor based at Glasgow University’s Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, pure fruit juices contain as much sugars as fizzy drinks, and should thus not be promoted as a healthy alternative as they could probably be counter-productive.
According to Prof. Sattar, fruit juice provides the same amount of energy and sugar as processed sugary drinks: for instance, a 250ml serving of cola juice usually contains 26.5g of sugars and 105 kcal of energy; 250 ml of apple juice similarly contains 110kcal of energy and 26g of sugar.
While fruit juices are in many ways similar to the fruit they were produced from, they have been found to be lacking in several aspects. One such deficiency comes in the fact that most fruit juices are stripped of their fruit’s fibers. Because fibers induce a sense of fullness, one will drink a lot more juice than he will consume fruit before feeling sated, meaning that the juice consumer will take in more sugar and energy than the fruit consumer.
According to Dr. Gill, such excessive consumption of fruit juice means that any positive benefit that could have arisen from taking the vitamins and minerals in the juices is negated by adverse subsequent metabolic processes.
This fact seems to be confirmed by an experiment in which participants drank 500ml of pure grape juice daily for 3 months. Grape juice, which is rich in antioxidants, did not perform as would have been expected, as it resulted in insulin resistance.
Part of the greater problem the researchers found is that many people also tended to underestimate the levels of sugar in fruit juices, sometimes by as much as 48%, which suggests many people are consuming more energy and sugars than they think they are.
The researchers called for people to drink no more than 150ml of fruit juices a day, so that your energy and sugar consumption doesn’t exceed recommended levels.
To get an idea of calorific intake for some common fruit juices and puddings, you can check sites such as this one.
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