I know this thread has turned anti-juice, but may I recommend pure cranberry juice. It’s an acquired taste, but very yummy if you’re into it. Also, you only can drink a small cup of it due to the strong taste, so you won’t be getting that much sugar.
A small glass of OJ- with all the pulp- is just fine. With pulp, it adds a modest but decent amount of valuable fiber. There’s also some antioxidants, etc.
Processed stuff, without pulp, is just about sugar-water with Vit C, so QtM is generally correct.
Reading that article after reading this thread = confusion.
Why not just eat the fruit? The fiber content, the nutrients in the flesh and skin… It just makes sense. I think the healthiest beverage is water, perhaps followed by lowfat milk, but, hey, I’m a diet cokeaholic… I just gotta have it. When the bottle in the fridge is running low and I don’t have another one in the pantry, I start shaking and shit.
Keep in mind that magazines and newspapers are often shills for the products they “write” about.
What’s the motivation of Men’s Journal? What’s their priority? Is it to provide you with well-researched and untainted medical information? Or is it to write stories that paints their advertisers in a positive light (or at least a non-negative light)? Who pays their bills? (It’s certainly not the subscriber.)
What’s the motivation of the SDMB posters who volunteer their answers? (It’s certainly not to make money off of you.)
Maybe some (healthy) skepticism can sort through the contradictory messages.
Not so much. Note that they are not reviewing many single fruit juices, they are mostly reviewing fruit juice drinks to which thinsg have been added. And, look at the ones which failed.
They also were considering "…four ingredients make a juice nutritionally beneficial: phenolic acids (to prevent cancer), anthocyanins (to prevent aging), vitamin C (to aid in healing wounds), and beta-carotene (to boost the immune system). "
Note that OJ had “Superhigh levels of vitamin C, unsurprisingly, and it also had fair levels of phenolics.” As QtM has pointed out, we get enough Vit C in a normal diet (or a daily multivite), so you don’t need Juice (with all that sugar) for Vit C.
Now as for :phenolic acids, anthocyanins and beta-carotene, the jury is still out on the benefits of those, and in many cases you can get more in vegetables than sugar-laden fruit juice.
I’d prefer a glass of wine a day to get my phenolics, anyway.
I think that a glass a day of real pure fruit juice (pomegranite, OJ *with pulp or dark grape) is a Good idea, and here QtM and I disagree to a small extent. However, chugging a bunch of it to get hydration means you are getting hwaaaay too much sugar. Also, some fruit juices (processed OJ, white grape, apple) are pretty much empty calories. Eschew them, or consider them the equivilant of drinking Seven-Up, instead of “Hey, I’m drinking fruit juice so it must be better than those fools drinking soda!”. That’s not true.
*phenolic acids, anthocyanins and beta-carotene have enough evidence to be worth pursuing, IMHO.
I’m convinced that a tall glass of V-8 (or a vegetable juice knock off) given the Virgin Mary treatment- V-8, hot sauce, fresh garlic or garlic powder, celery salt, and fresh cracked pepper is the perfect tonic in combination with a small chaser of fresh grapefruit juice.
Are there varieties of apples or bananas without vitamin C?