So in order to eat healthily, I have been augmenting my meals with fruit juices. That is a bit tad more expensive than cut fruits, so I am just wondering, are there any difference between quashed fruits as liquid and fruits which you still need to chew?
(I suppose fruit juice are easier to digest, but that’s just a guess)
All the diet advice I’ve read says to eat the actual fruit instead. You get fibre, and a sense of actually getting food for your calories. It’s quite easy to swallow a lot of calories in the form of juice, and while it’s probably better than pop for you, when consumed as liquid, it doesn’t seem like the calories are noticed. Eating the fruit is far more filling, and harder to overeat. You’d have to eat a lot of actual oranges to match how many calories you can get out of a few glasses of orange juice.
I do find it’s easier to mix the vodka with orange juice versus a whole orange, however. 
Check out this thread and those linked at post 14 within: Is drinking a glass of Orange Juice any better for you than a Pepsi and a vitamin? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
Ah thanks.
Perhaps I should be clearer. I am talking about fresh fruit juices, not the pre-processed package fruit juices you find at super-marts. Would that make a difference? (The threads suggested seem to be dealing with the latter)
What difference do you think there is between fresh fruit juice and the packaged kind?
Sodium (especially in tomato juice) and sugars. In fact, on my orange juice label, there’s a list of ingredients followed by an asterisk that tells you that those ingredients aren’t found in freshly squeezed juice. Also, there’s more fiber in freshly-squeezed.
The main difference is there is little fiber in juice.
I was asking what CrazyChop believes is the difference between fresh fruit juice and the packaged kind of 100% juice. The Tropicana orange juice I used to drink, for example, listed only one ingredient on the label.
The health benefits of fruit are largely attributed to fiber, vitamin/mineral content, and antioxidant/sterol/minutequantityofenzymeXYZ compounds. The former is all but eliminated when juicing, and the second is of little concern - not much scurvy in the states. The latter group are of arguable benefit to begin with, and tend to be relatively fragile molecules easily degraded by processes like homogenization and pasteurization.
ETA: I believe the pasteurization/homogenization steps are what give the fresh stuff the marginal upper hand and may be what CrazyChop is referring to. Personally I’d say it’s an academic argument.
Fruit juice is largely like dissolving a multivitamin in a glass of coke.
If you take several oranges and use a blender or a juicer to make your juice, you still get some fiber from pulp though, right? Just not as much?
:rolleyes:
If you want the maximum health benefit for your buck eat the fruit.
No rolleyes here, but it is much easier to drink 8 ounces of orange juice in a few minutes than it is to eat the 4 oranges that would need to be juiced to make that 8 ounces.
But you don’t need to eat four oranges to be healthy. One orange is quite sufficient.
Also, I don’t understand the advantage of hurrying one’s consumption of nutrition. I understand that sometimes we all get into a rush, but if you’re looking to speed up your meals on a daily basis I would suggest that slowing down one’s general pace might also be beneficial.
I’m sorry - I think we’re arguing the same side here. I probably wasn’t as clear as I should have been. I should have emphasized that it is much easier to drink calories than it is to eat them.
I humbly would say that I have no idea; which is why I am asking.
But, well, there is no papaya, watermelon, honeydew prepackaged fruit juice (I hate orange juice, btw :D)
Just to make it clear, the two contender are:
Eat the fruit. You’re fuller on healthier food, and it provides more nutrients and fiber than juice.
Also, why is Firefox using a British dictionary when I’ve told it to use an American one?
Okay, wait. You mean you’re just sticking the cut fruit in there, blending it, and drinking the entire concoction? In other words, you’re not actually leaving all the pulp, skin, and fibre behind. You end up with a really thick drink, then, right?
If that’s the case, nutritionally, they should be almost identical, I would think. I hope so, because we do that all the time. Sometimes, it’s so thick you can almost chew it.
If, however, you’re running the fruit through a juicer that extracts the juice and leaves the pulp behind, they’re not at all nutritionally equivalent. You’d be drinking just the calories, sugar and vitamins(which are good, granted), but leaving all the really important fibre.
Other than aiding regularity, what are the health benefits of fiber? Or is that the only thing fruit does for you?
Mmm, fibre! Water-soluble fibre helps decrease cholesterol levels in the blood. It binds to bile salts, which allows them to be excreted and not reabsorbed, so your liver makes more, out of cholesterol.
It’s good stuff.