When I was a kid I absolutely loved fruit juice! However, I don’t drink juice anymore. Not because I don’t like it anymore, because I do. So…why don’t I drink juice anymore? Read on and I’ll tell you.
The Calories
The first reason I stopped drinking juice is because of the calories. When I started reading labels I realized just how many calories there were in a cup of juice. I kinda made me sad to see how many calories my favorite juices were costing me. But, why does this matter? Well… there’s a couple of reasons.
- Don’t drink your calories: If you drink too many of your calories it could severely limit what is left for real food. Real food is what our bodies need. By real food I mean whole foods; fruits, veggies, whole grain and the like. These foods provide nutrients and fiber that drinks, such as juice, just can’t provide.
- Limited how much you can drink: Because of how many calories there are in juice, it is greatly limited on how much of it you drink with a clear conscience. You either can only drink a small amount, or you go significantly over your calorie budget for the day. Either way, it’s not fun. Fruit juice just doesn’t give you as much of a “bang for your buck” as eating the whole fruit.
The Sugar
Another reason I stopped drinking juice was because of the sugar. Yes, those simple carbohydrates. Carbohydrates aren’t bad. However, too much of anything is a bad thing. We run into a couple of problem with the sugar content in juice.
- Many have added sugar: It is no secret that many juices have added sugars. This really presents a problem. But, even without the added sugars, fruit juice tends to be naturally high in simple carbohydrates without many of the other nutrients that come with whole fruit.
- Really ups the calories, but not the benefit: Because of this, you end up getting all the calories without getting all of the benefits. This is never a good thing when you are trying to minimize your calories and maximize your nutrients. If you are trying to lose, or even maintain weight, this could wreak havoc on your efforts.
The Lack of Fiber
I guess we could say the last reason is lack of fiber. Juice does not have the fiber content that fruit does, that’s obvious. There’s hardly any fiber in liquid. This does presents a couple of problems.
- All of the calories, with much less benefit: No fiber also means that you have all of the calories, but not all of the benefits. It sounds like a common theme doesn’t it. If you juice fruit you get rid of much, if not close to all, of the fiber that was holding the structure of the fruit. Fiber is important because it helps the colon move and process food and help the food move through the digestive system. Fiber also latches on to toxins and other unwanted and harmful thing and, along with water, flushes them through the body.
- Leaves fewer calories for actual food: Because the nutrients and benefits, such as fiber, are lowered you are going to need to find some other source for them. However, the calories were not lowered. This means that you will either be under on nutrients or over on calories, or it will be a very close margin if your lucky.
Coffee/Tea
What interesting is that I started drinking coffee and tea instead of juice. And, I’ve been quite satisfied to tell the truth. There are a couple of reasons I started drinking coffee and tea instead
- Coffee’s actually good for you Coffee is not as bad for you as you’ve been told. What is bad for you is a ton of creamer and sugar. I little bit of milk or creamer and a little bit of sugar is alright, but a ton of it is not good. The coffe itself, however, is not that bad for you. Now, you don’t want to go overboard on caffine, but this is the case with anything. Too much of anything is a bad thing. I still limit how much coffee I drink, but not near as much as I had to limit the juice I was drinking.
- Fewer calories and more satisfying I have found coffee and tea much more satisfying in the end. Coffee and tea are very low in calories. This means that you get to drink more of it and it does not over budget your calories. Both coffee and tea also have other helpful benefits, however these benefits are beyond the scope of this article.
It may seem that fruit juice is healthy, it comes from fruit right? Well, as you can see, that’s not really the case. All the things add up to make a not-so-good story for fruit juice. Stop drinking your calories and free some up for wholesome, real food! That’s it for now, catcha next time!