The high school where I used to live replaced soda machines with juice machines at some point, supposedly on a health kick. I’m thinking back to this and wondering: is there any reason why I should drink juice instead of soda?
I’m looking at two different brands of 100% juice (Minute Maid Orange and Veryfine Apple) and both calorie counts are higher than soda’s – 10 oz. of juice/140 calories vs. 12 oz. soda/150 calories. Sure, juice has a few more vitamins, but it shouldn’t matter if I take a daily multivitamin. Let’s also say for the sake of argument that we’re talking about 100% juice with no added sugars or other ingredients (so not Sunny Delight), and that my can of soda is something caffeine-free like Sprite and doesn’t have any weird energy-drink additives.
What I’m really asking is, aren’t they both basically sugar water? Does juice have some important ingredient that I’m missing here? Does carbonation matter in the least? Are some juices healthier than others? Most importantly, why do people (myself included) seem to have the innate sense that it’s healthier to drink juice than to drink soda, and that soda rots your teeth/makes you fat?
Both are big sources of calories. Juices have some benefits (antioxidents, vitamins, fiber) that make them fine in small amounts. Orange or pomegranate juice would be better than, say apple juice, which is basically just sugar water.
There’s not a lot good to be said about drinking lots of either soda or juice, however.
What I’m getting from a lot of internet sources is that fruit juice doesn’t have refined sugar. That doesn’t seem to change the total sugar content, though, nor does it make it healther in any other ways besides adding a few vitamins. There are also quite a few cookbooks that use fruit juice instead of white sugar – again, these seem pretty bogus and targeted at people who think that “natural” is a meaningful food term, given that it will still have the same amount of sugar regardless of where it comes from. This whole fruit juice thing seems to be a marketing ploy to convince people that they’re drinking/eating something healthy.
The 100% orange juice I have in front of me has the same number of calories as the apple. Not sure about pomegranite…
Drinking sugary juice supplies the bacteria on the teeth what it needs to grow and produce the acid that rots your teeth. Juice is still bad to suck on all day.
Juice doesn’t have caffeine, which most sodas do. I can see schools wanting to reduce caffeine levels in students.
Sodas often also contain phosphates, which can leach other minerals (primarily calcium) from your system. (Evidently this is still being debated, but it had a serious effect on my teeth.)
Sodas tend to be more acidic than juices, depending on the juice and the soda. OJ is pretty acidic, for example.
Some types of juice offer other health benefits beyond vitamins - some of those “not quite sure why but can document it works” stuff. Pomegranate and cranberry are the top ones I can think of.
All in all, drink water. Your body will thank you for it. The occasional juice or soda is fine, but most people drink way too much sugar.
Offhand, here’s what I can think of:
[ul]
[li]people more often mindlessly drink large amounts of soda all day than they do juice[/li][li]soda has absolutely no nutritional value, while juice has at least trace amounts of good things[/li][li]and I wouldn’t discount the caffeine thing. Of the top ten soft drinks in the US as of 2008, only Sprite (#7) is non-caffeinated.[/li][/ul]
The problem with OJ is the pulp and fiber is the best part, at least best part for you. And too often that gets strained out. Americans are woefully lacking in fiber.
It’s hard to make a case that consumption of any sweet liquid is a good idea, long-term. Lots of people have made it a habit, but it’s not a good one.
Evidence says Wilbo523 has it right: when you need to drink, water is the way to go. Some people claim they have no taste for plain water, but this is almost always due to having trained their taste with sweet drinks. You can re-learn to like water in a week or so.
At least with soda machines, there is a zero calorie option. They don’t make diet juice. Although most vending machines I see now stock bottled water (usually right next to an unused water fountain :rolleyes: ).
Even though it has about the same number of calories as Apple or Orange juice, I have heard that Pomegranate juice is ridiculously healthy and that there have been many recommendations that we should be drinking it frequently (once a day or so).
I don’t know how much of it is hype or nutrition fad but I have heard that it has almost magical benefits at preventing (maybe even reversing some) Alzheimer’s, strokes, cancers etc.
I do not really like straight pomegranate juice, but I use it as an excuse to nosh on dark-chocolate covered pomegranate seeds and pomegranate ice cream at every opportunity.
Sure they do! I have Diet Welch’s and Diet Cranberry juice in my refrigerator right now, but I believe it is only juice cut with water then sold at a premium.
Yes, pomegranate juice is the latest in a long string of MLM-vended magical fruit juices that are supposed to cure everything from cancer to your bruised pinkie. I haven’t looked into the science behind it, but typically, a study is published that says something like “under certain conditions, a lot of X, which is found in fruit Y, seems to have a small effect on disease Z in the lab,” which then translates to “OMG DRINK THIS OR YOU’LL DIE”.
I may be slightly exaggerating.
Anyway, I think this was in one of the threads linked to a few posts ago, but QtM set forth some very sound arguments as to why juice isn’t really any better for you than juice. I’m on his side.
Diet grape juice is just diluted grape juice, but cranberry juice is a different story. 100% cranberry juice is super-sour, so most commercial cranberry juice is 20-25% juice (IIRC), plus water and a ton of sugar, making it more like cranberry-ade than juice. Presumably, diet cranberry juice replaces the sugar with an artificial sweetener.
I don’t buy OceanSpray or other “cranberry juice cocktail” juices. My Diet Cranberry juice is just juice and water (probably lots of water) and it is very tart- that is the joy of cranberry juice.
I also have Welch’s Diet Black Cherry but it is a juice cocktail with other juices and Splenda mixed in.
We only have juice at breakfast though, because it is the easiest way to get some fruit product into my children. Over all day-long drinking should be water for optimal health (although don’t tell my own body that- it subsists on Diet Pepsi).
