hauss, as an alternative health person myself, I can understand how you got put into a defensive position. The majority of the board’s posters are not supportive of anything that hasn’t been subjected to a very specific type of scientific testing.
That being said…think about it.
Whole foods are best.
Whole foods often (but not always) contain micronutrients and phyto compounds which act synergistically. A whole plant extract of St. John’s Wort is more effective than a standardized extract of hypericin. Why? Well, because hyperforin’s needed too. So standardize both? Well, that doesn’t work as well as whole plant either. There’s other unrecognized chemicals (as well as, in my humble and oh-so-unscientific opinion, “energy”) from the whole plant that we can’t mix together in a dish.
Eat the whole orange. It’s better for you. Regardless of whether or not fruit juices are healthy (and most alt practioners agree that unless you’re fresh juicing and readding the pulp to your juice, they’re mostly sugar water), the fresh whole fruit is healthier. It’s carefully balanced between sugars and fibers to prevent your blood sugar from getting a whack with the ugly stick. Fruit juice, without the fiber, isn’t balanced.
BUT, there was a question in the OP. And that question was: Do treatments to preserve OJ kill phytochemicals & enzymes?
The answer is yes. Orange juice sold in the store is pasteurized with heat. Heat alters the structure of enzymes, effectively rendering them unable to interact with the proteins they are meant to break down. Other phytochemicals are rendered innert not just by heat, but by the exposure to light in the supermarket, oxygenation, and just plain getting old during storage.
Eating just the juice of the orange is marginally better, if only because the peel has protected it from the light and much of the oxygen. But it does still leave you open to an imbalance in the optimal* sugar/fiber ratio. The fiber in a orange is a very gentle one, and not one which should lead to intestinal blockage. There’s really no logical reason to go to the effort of spitting it out, even if you don’t feel like you “need” the extra fiber. In addition, some of those enzymes and phytochemicals you want and not present in the juice (which is the energy source intended to attract eating and subsequent spreading of seed in feces, hence all the sugar) but in the cells themselves, which remain in the pulp.
*Why do I say “optimal”? Because in nature, we wouldn’t waste the food. Our bodies developed and evolved to run best with foods that evolved around us. Therefore, barring abnormalities, our bodies run best on whole, minimally processed foods, with their evolved ratios of nutrients, eaten in variety.
Eat the whole orange.
