Fruit juice is generally considered to be much better for you than soda. But in watching my calories, I’ve noticed it’s almost as bad as soda in that respect. Some types have vitamins, but is that all it has going for it?
What do nutritionists say?
The World Health Organization (in the dietary guidelines that raised so much furor recently) recommends lots of fresh fruit; fruit juice they recommend cautiously. It’s got more vitamins than soda, but most fruit juices are loaded with sugar – juices concentrate the sugar from fruit, offering none of the fiber or other constituents of whole fruit.
‘Good for you’ is a rather vague term and implies that consuming something has just a single effect on the body; for example fruit juice can be quite acidic, which can be bad for the teeth, but the acids can be vitamins, which can be good for other parts of you.
OK, it wasn’t as blunt as that in the WHO report, but they do recognize that “many fruit drinks … are equally energy-dense [compared to soda] and may promote weight gain if drunk in large quantities.” Basically, if it’s really sweet, it’s probably got a lot of sugar, and you don’t want a lot of it.
The PDF of the WHO report is here: http://www.who.int/hpr/NPH/docs/who_fao_expert_report.pdf
And to top that it all depends on how much real fruit is in your juice. Is 100% Juice better than soda? Is 10% worse?
FWIW, my pediatrician recommends giving my son juice over soda or kool-aid, but says to avoid apple or grape juices. Those are mostly sugar. Orange juice, cranberry juice (avoid “cocktails”), or grapefruit were the ones she said were best. They have the highest levels of Vit. C, cranberry helps with urinary tract health issues, and they’ve (typically) got the lowest levels of additives. As Moo said, depending on the brand a juice may have as little as 5-10% of actual fruit juice in it. Read your labels and choose accordingly.
How about the “Lots of Plup” versions of grapefruit and orange juice; Is the pulp content high enough to give you some of the fiber that’s lacking in other juices?
You can’t even trust the “100% Juice” or “No Sugar Added” labels.
Juice companies know that people like sweet juices. They also know that most fruits aren’t sweet enough on their own. So, they’ll take white grape, apple, or pear juice, filter it to remove the natural colors and flavors, and pass it through ion exchange columns. The nutrients are removed and replaced with H and OH ions, which combine to form water, and nothing of the original juice remains except the sweet sugars. It’s an expensive way to make sugar water, but it’s worth it to the juice companies, because they get to dump it into their kiwi (or whatever) juice and still call it “100% Juice”. Your only clue is the presence of white grape, apple, or pear juice on the ingredients list.
so any way, short of juicing it yourself, by referencing labels to be sure your getting actual 100% juice?
Here’s a nice thread on the subject:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=144928
Basically most fruit juices are not significantly superior to soft drinks with sugar in them. They are almost as nutritionally empty as sodas. The trace amounts of vitamins and minerals they contain are quite trivial, if one is eating even a relatively well-balanced diet otherwise.
Also, if “good for you” simply means “contains many vitamins”, why not just take a multivitamin?
Thus we see the sketchiness of nutrition science. People still aren’t sure whether low-fat diets or low-carb diets are more effective, or “healthier” – that should tell you something about the subjective nature of these things.
I have a weight-lifting friend who makes smoothies and he can’t lose weight to save his life! I’ll bet it’s the smoothies.
It’s always best to eat the fruit, rather than drink it. Eating it provides more hunger satisfaction.
Can you drink it? Sure. Is it ‘good for you’? Well, as mentioned earlier, that’a a vague term. Can it be part of a well rounded intelligent approach to eating that eliminates empty or low-value calories? Absolutely.
But a great piece of advice is to eat the fruit, because it is more satisfying and better to fight hunger.
Add water.
FWIW, I have a friend whose kidneys couldn’t handle the concentrated level of fruit juice. I mean, our systems evolved eating the whole fruit, and taking only the juice is a higher concentration than we’re physiologically used to. They thought she had kidney cancer until she stopped drinking juices.
The key here is “from concentrate” and “not from concentrate”. The latter is just as good as fruit nutritionally, for the most part besides fiber. The latter is also very expensive and very hard to find for most juices other than OJ.
I drink low acid not from concentrate OJ and Welch’s grape juice, which is from concentrate but still quality. Publix does not stock pure grape juice. These two juices are all you should need, plus maybe grapfruit juice and V8, which are a good part of a balanced diet and exercise plan.
Here’s a nice thread on the subject:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=144928
Basically most fruit juices are not significantly superior to soft drinks with sugar in them. They are almost as nutritionally empty as sodas. The trace amounts of vitamins and minerals they contain are quite trivial, if one is eating even a relatively well-balanced diet otherwise.
If you’re trying to lose weight, the problem with most readily-available fruit juice is the high sugar content. Your body burns the sugar in the fruit juice for its energy, rather than raiding your on-board energy reserves (fat). So you don’t lose weight.
When I decided to lose two stone earlier this year (achieved within 12 weeks, hurrah), a friend of mine who’s a personal fitness trainer tipped me off about this aspect of fruit juice, and it made a huge difference. Basically, I went from consuming a couple of cartons a day to… well, none at all.
Fuel, you’re kidding yourself. The difference in nutrient content notwithstanding (and I’m not sure there is any difference), juice from concentrate is exactly the same WRT sugar content as fresh juice. And even if that weren’t true, the warnings about fruit juice apply to the fresh juice versus eating the whole fruit – that’s the entire point of the discussion.
I recommend (and I have absolutely no qualifications, other than reading a lot of labels) that you read labels carefully and pay attention to serving size!
Lots of juice is loaded with calories and very nutrient-poor. It’s actually really hard to find anything in a convenience store, for example, that isn’t loaded with sugar–other than diet soda. Even products that you might think should be healthier, like juice drinks and fruit-flavored iced tea, often have nearly as much sugar as soda.
Personally, I don’t care if juice is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup or concentrated fruit juice, or what. I’m looking just at the total number of sugar grams and the amount of nutrients. If your choice is between a sugary soda with no nutrients and a sugary fruit juice with a few nutrients, I think juice is the healthier choice. However, if your choice is between juice and water, or even juice and diet soda or unsweetened tea, well, I guess it depends on what your personal nutritional and weight-loss goals are at that moment. And how thirsty you are. 
What about vegetable juices like V8? I’ve been under the impression that you can get lots of good phytonutrients (other than vitamins) from it.