I just learned that fruits and vegetables contain hundreds of kinds of phytochemicals (that website is lame but there is actual science behind this) that help prevent disease and promote health. Is this proven fact at this point or just wishful thinking to make people eat more fruits and vegetables? Would a beverage made of fruits or vegetables (orange/pineapple/banana/etc juice or V-8) provide the same properties or do you need the actual fruits and vegetables? Oranges alone supposedly contain 170 phytochemicals but I do not know if orange juice contains that many.
There’s good evidence that phytochemicals are for real–lycopene and tomatoes are a good example. Not sure about the fruit juice, but there are enough reasons to prefer fruit over juice anyway.
I know that with apples many of the phytochemicals are in the skins, so apple juice wouldn’t offer any but I do not know about the other fruit juices.
Fruit juice doesn’t spoil after a couple of days the way fresh fruit does though, that is largely why I wonder about juices. But I suppose there are other ways to extend the life of fruits:
buy dehydrated or dehydrate them yourself
buy canned
buy juice made from fruit
I don’t know about the bioavailibility of these types though, but you’d assume they would be the same.