Fruit Juice....just as bad for you as soda.

[CrazyPhuD]

Frankly this is the least surprising result in the history of science. Shocker...what's bad for you from obesity/diabetes is liquid calories that don't make you feel full. The fact that it's natural doesn't make it any better.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-0...ce-sugary.html

(Medical Xpress)—Drinking fruit juice is potentially just as bad for you as drinking sugar-sweetened drinks because of its high sugar content, two medical researchers from the University of Glasgow have warned.
Writing in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal, Professor Naveed Sattar and Dr Jason Gill – both of the university's Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences – call for better labelling of fruit juice containers to make explicit to consumers that they should drink no more than 150ml a day.
They also recommend a change to the UK Government's current "five-a-day" guidelines, saying these five fruit and vegetable servings should no longer include a portion of fruit juice. Inclusion of fruit juice as a fruit equivalent is "probably counter-productive" because it "fuels the perception that drinking fruit juice is good for health, and thus need not be subject to the limits that many individuals impose on themselves for consumption of less healthy foods".
Professor Sattar, who is Professor of Metabolic Medicine, said: "Fruit juice has a similar energy density and sugar content to other sugary drinks, for example: 250ml of apple juice typically contains 110 kcal and 26g of sugar; and 250ml of cola typically contains 105kcal and 26.5g of sugar.
"Additionally, by contrast with the evidence for solid fruit intake, for which high consumption is generally associated with reduced or neutral risk of diabetes, current evidence suggests high fruit juice intake is associated with increased risk of diabetes."One glass of fruit juice contains substantially more sugar than one piece of fruit; in addition, much of the goodness in fruit – fibre, for example – is not found in fruit juice, or is there in far smaller amounts, explains Professor Sattar.
Although fruit juices contain vitamins and minerals, whereas sugar-sweetened drinks do not, Dr Gill argues that the micronutrient content of fruit juices "might not be sufficient to offset the adverse metabolic consequences of excessive fruit juice consumption".
In one scientific trial, for example, it was shown that, despite having a high antioxidant content, the consumption of half a litre of grape juice per day for three months actually increased insulin resistance and waist circumference in overweight adults."Thus, contrary to the general perception of the public, and of many healthcare professionals, that drinking fruit juice is a positive health behaviour, their consumption might not be substantially different in health terms than drinking other sugary drinks," said Dr Gill.
The researchers also tested public awareness of the sugar content of fruit juices, smoothies and sugar-sweetened drinks by carrying out an online poll of over 2000 adults. Participants were shown pictures of full containers of different non-alcoholic beverages and were asked to estimate the number of teaspoons of sugar contained in the portion shown. Although the sugar content of all drinks and smoothies was similar, the sugar content of fruit juices and smoothies was underestimated by 48% on average, whereas the sugar content of carbonated drinks was overestimated by 12%.
"Thus, there seems to be a clear misperception that fruit juices and smoothies are low-sugar alternatives to sugar-sweetened beverages," said Dr Gill.
There are strong public health reasons for targeting sugar-sweetened drinks, possibly through the imposition of an increase in taxation as a means of reducing consumption, argues Professor Sattar.
While there have been calls in the USA to eliminate all fruit-juice consumption by children, the researchers stop short of recommending similar moves in the UK. They also feel that a fruit juice tax would not be warranted. However, Professor Sattar argues: "In the broader context of public health policy, it is important that debate about sugar-sweetened beverage reduction should include fruit juice."
The debate around fruit juice comes as medical experts are focusing more closely on the link between high sugar consumption and heart disease risks.
Professor Sattar said: "We have known for years about the dangers of excess saturated fat intake, an observation which led the food industry to replace unhealthy fats with presumed 'healthier' sugars in many food products. Helping individuals cut not only their excessive fat intake, but also refined sugar intake, could have major health benefits including lessening obesity and heart attacks. Ultimately, there needs to be a refocus to develop foods which not only limit saturated fat intake but simultaneously limit refined sugar content."

[ReynardMuldrake]

Originally Posted by Silock

The thing that people miss in the calories in and out debate is that as long as you aren't over your calorie expenditure in terms of what you take in, a normal person can eat anything they want and not worry about weight or insulin resistance or any of that stuff.

In my experience, that's simply not true. I followed that advice my entire life and never had any success. Whenever I tried losing weight by traditional methods, like portion control, calorie counting, eating a low-fat, multigrain, healthy diet, and daily exercise, I've never had any success. I might lose five pounds, but stall every time. And I was miserable. I finally switched to low-carb, no sugar diet in December and have lost about 30 lbs in 2 months so far. And that's with NO calorie counting and NO exercise. I just eat till I'm full. And I feel much happier.

I can't say how your body works, but speaking for myself, the composition of the food I eat makes all the difference in the world. I'm convinced that my sugar intake is the reason I've stayed fat all these years.

[Silock]

Originally Posted by ReynardMuldrake

In my experience, that's simply not true. I followed that advice my entire life and never had any success. Whenever I tried losing weight by traditional methods, like portion control, calorie counting, eating a low-fat, multigrain, healthy diet, and daily exercise, I've never had any success. I might lose five pounds, but stall every time. And I was miserable. I finally switched to low-carb, no sugar diet in December and have lost about 30 lbs in 2 months so far. And that's with NO calorie counting and NO exercise. I just eat till I'm full. And I feel much happier.

I can't say how your body works, but speaking for myself, the composition of the food I eat makes all the difference in the world. I'm convinced that my sugar intake is the reason I've stayed fat all these years.

It's because you're eating less calories. Proteins and fats are more difficult to eat in higher quantities. It has nothing to do with sugar. There are lots of studies that show the low carb high protein dieters to simply eat fewer calories even when allowed to ad lib their diets. I guarantee that if you were truly eating fewer calories than you burned, you would have lost weight, even if you only ate pixie sticks. Many people simply don't know how many calories hey really need and end up overestimating. I do think it's easier to lose weight on a low carb diet simply because it's more difficult to eat too much. It's still possible, though.

[Rausch]

Originally Posted by Cochise

Obviously, nobody should drink copious amounts of sugar, but the thread title is really an obscene generalization. Soda has no redeeming qualities, while fruit juice has many beneficial ingredients.

THis.

While cranberry juice has a number of benefits it almost always comes drenched in sugar to improve the taste...

[Rudy tossed tigger's salad]

I prefer sweets to juice. Juice got cut long ago.

[Sannyasi]

I don't disagree with the article in practice, because I cut out fruit juice from my diet a long time ago, but it engages in such obvious hyperbole.

I guess they figured an article titled "Most Fruit Juices have a lot of Calories and you may want to be Careful about how much you Drink" wouldn't generate the number of clicks they were looking for.

[Stewie]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Only drink 100% juice not from concentrate, absolutely no HFCS.

But so damn expensive.

Most often, I make lemonade from squeezed lemon and sugar, then mix it with Lipton brewed tea for Arnold Palmers.

The Aldi fresh squeezed OJ is $2.39 for a half gallon. I can't tell the difference between it and the national brands. Plus, it lasts much longer than the concentrate stuff which starts to get a bitter funk pretty quickly.

I'm not a sweet tooth but I like my OJ with breakfast. I keep it to about a 1/2 cup serving.

[RippedmyFlesh]

I was obese at 290 and had health issues. I started my diet with being very strict about liquids just water, coffee and tea.And had to stop drinking liquor which sucked. I didn't cut down that much on food and in a year went from 290 to 220. It was way easier to have will power over what I drank than what I ate.

[ChiefRocka]

My daily drinkers are POM and Bolthouse carrot juice

[RippedmyFlesh]

Originally Posted by Silock

The thing that people miss in the calories in and out debate is that as long as you aren't over your calorie expenditure in terms of what you take in, a normal person can eat anything they want and not worry about weight or insulin resistance or any of that stuff.

My Dr was all about cal in/out concerning weight but always added that the quality of the calories will determine how you feel. True if you use up all of calories for the day on snickers bars you won't gain more weight than an equal # of calories of healthy food. But you will prob feel like crap.