A number of years back, a doctor I was seeing gave me a routine checkup and while looking at my bloodwork asked me how much fruit I was eating a day. I told him how much, I don’t remember the details but it was a lot, and he said that I should cut down on my intake. At the time I thought that was strange since I never have heard of someone eating too much fruit. I remember it had something to do with blood sugar, but that’s all I remember. I did cut down somewhat, and since then I have had lots of physicals and it has never come up again.
So can eating too much fruit really impact your blood sugar to the point that it becomes a problem? Has anyone else ever heard of this?
Absolutely. My doctor told me that drinking a glass of orange juice is like injecting a large dose of sugar into your veins. If you’re diabetic, you have to watch ALL forms of sugars, including things like fruit, rice, bread, milk, etc.
There’s at least one more angle here. About thirty-five years ago, my wife-to-be was following a weight-loss diet that called for a lot of fruit. Her fruit of choice was oranges, and she developed urinary difficulties. When she went to her doctor, he asked about her diet, and he told her to go easy on the oranges. She was working in South Carolina at the time, and we kept in touch by letters. I never found out exactly what the connection was between lots of oranges and vaguely described urinary difficulties.
So what defines “too much?” And is any one fruit better or worse than another? I for example start my day with between 300 and 600 grams of mixed, fresh cut fruit a day consisting of canteloupe, honeydew, pineapple, strawberries, and purple and green grapes. I may throw a peach, an orange or a banana into the mix sometimes, too. This is a fairly recent thing though (about 6 months) and I’m doing it to replace what I normally graze on in the course of a day with healthier, more diet-conscious alternatives. Is this too much?
Oh no not this again. Most people are already not deficient in anything OJ will provide , so pretty much you are drinking a glass of orange flavoured sugar water. Take the diet soda instead.
My WAG would be that since vitamin C is water-soluble, that sheer amount of citric acid might at the very least hurt during urination. Hate to resort to friend-of-a-friend statements, but the brother of a friend did run into that aforementioned problem after eating way more chewable vitamin C tablets than he should have.
I believe the past argument on the board was that it was a poor choice between either, and you should opt for an orange proper rather than the juice or the soda. You lose out on a ton of fiber (which at the very least will help fill you up) by going with juice.
Yet another IANAD opinion here, but women are often told to take lots of vitamin C when suffering from urinary tract infections, on the grounds that this will keep the environment on the acidic side and make things difficult for the invading nasties.
Again with the 'OJ is bad for you." :rolleyes: Look, suppose you’re thirsty. You have in front of you a can of sugar-sweetened soda and a bottle of OJ. Which is better (or worse, if you prefer)? Let’s see: Both have sugar. Both have calories. Neither has fats. The OJ has close to 100% of your daily vitamin C requirement, plus some other nutrients, including things like folic acid, IIRC. Seems like a no-brainer. Bringing in, “Oh, you’d be better off consuming a whole orange” is spurious. That’s not the comparison. You don’t have an orange, you have a choice between soda and OJ. The comment that the OJ is no better than (or worse than) soda is silly.
If so they’re being told poor information. They should be drinking cranberry juice, which contains a chemical that makes bacteria less adherent to bladder walls.
There, I basically said that the miniscule amounts of nutrients available in OJ don’t compensate for it’s large sugar load or make it a significantly superior drink to anything with an equal amount of sugar. I stand by that.
Because you get more than enough without the OJ (as do 99.9+% of americans). Adding a nutrient you don’t need to a food substance doesn’t make said substance healthier. You’re just pissing out the extra vitamin C anyway.
Beyond that one can even take “cranberry concentrate” pills. Apparently the amount of cranberry juice you have to drink for this to be highly effective would also be more enough to clean you out in other ways as well… :eek:
I once worked with a nearly-vegan guy who was going jaundiced from eating too many carrots (I know, not a fruit…). He was basically told by his doctor that otherwise this wasn’t doing him any particular harm.
That you already get enough Vitamin C in your diet- most Americans do. But not all.
That you don’t need the claories. OJ is also a fine source of Calories, which are a requirement for continued life. You die if you don’t get enough. Then again, most Americans get too many, and most Westerners get plenty.
You’re not drinking the whole pulp OJ, which is a good source of dietary fiber. Americans don’t get enough fiber, in general.
To wit: Flavinoids, B6, niacin, magnesium, potassium, homocysteine, & riboflavin. Some OJ is fortified with Calcium & Vit D. Although the value of flavinoids is disputed, there is no harm in them, and you don’t get them in a One-A-Day, either.
So, yes, OJ is better for you than sugar soda- but hardly by a huge amount. OTOH- the caffeine in many sodas is problematic.
Depending on your Bloodsugar and caloric needs, it is true that for some dudes Diet soda could be better than OJ. Obese diabetics take note.
Note that Apple Juice is a well known nutritional litewieght (and apparently so is white grape-juice). Wheras a glass of OJ (especially with the pulp still in it) is probably a good idea for breakfast for most, you might as well drink 7-Up as Apple Juice.
Retired nurse here with information about UTIs. Worked with many doctors who avoided antibiotics as an initial treatment for UTIs. Depending on the organism they would Rx Mist Pot Cit to increase alkilinity or Vitamin C to increase acidity- each disrupted the life cycle of the particular acid or base resistant bacteria.
And most americans do not have significant deficiencies in the above, either. And now new evidence is indicating that homocysteine levels don’t matter much and that calcium supplementation doesn’t help like it was thought to, either.
So my assertion remains: For the vast majority of americans, OJ is not appreciably better than soda. While it can be better for some, they are by far in the minority. And if you’re at risk for various vitamin and mineral deficiencies, OJ isn’t the best way to get those things either.
I’m just tired of folks pouring juice into their kids and themselves and thinking they’re doing the family a favor. They’re not, by and large.