We’ve all done it.
We’re rushing out of the house in a hurry and rather than making time to eat a properly balanced meal, we decide to stop off at the local juice bar to grab a ‘healthy’ meal to go.
But is this really a good idea?
It’s easy to think so. After all, when we walk into a juice shop and see phrases and words we identify as healthy like cold-pressed, natural, organic or alkaline, we’re conditioned to think that the food or beverage is therefore a great option for nourishment, especially when we compare a juice to many of the other options for ‘grab and go’.
And it’s not something particular to just those of us who are focused on eating a healthy diet. Juicing is more popular now than ever with earnings estimates for the cold-pressed juice market now at $100 million per year1!
Eating natural, organic, alkaline food is the foundation of a real Paleo diet. A diet that promotes optimal health, supports immune system function, and helps the recovery of people suffering from the plethora of issues stemming from leaky gut syndrome2.
So how does juice fit into the picture?
For the most part, it doesn’t.
The majority of what you’ll find in most juice shops have far more cons than pros. The one exception being 100% green vegetable juice, which very low in sugar, contains wild proteins and ample fiber from vegetables, is clean and has a good dose of fat. All the others fall under the same category:
Too Much Sugar
One popular franchise offers a six-day ‘cleanse’ program centered around juices. One of the juices in this regimen comes in a two-serving, 16oz bottle and contains a total of 46 grams of carbohydrates, 36 of which come from sugar3! Don’t fool yourself by thinking the total calories in the bottle, 200 Cal, are more important than that whopping amount of sugar.
If you’re thinking it’s not such a big deal, because it’s ‘natural’ sugar, coming from fruit, think again. Sugar is still sugar and according to the Harvard School of Public Health4, fruit juice is not a better option than a soft drink. Even though it has more nutrients, it contains as much sugar (though from naturally occurring fruit sugars rather than added sugar) and calories as cola.
And so far we’re just talking about the claimed “healthy” fruit juices at the cold-press bar. Not the from concentrated drinks you find in the supermarket that “contain real fruit juice” and of course lots of added sugar. They may as well be called soft drinks without the carbonation.
The Nutrition Source5 created “How Sweet Is It” which is a guide to help consumers understand the amount of sugar and calories in soda, juice, sports drinks, and other popular beverages. In this guide, drinks that fall in the red category should be drunk infrequently and sparingly, if at all. These beverages have much more than 12 grams of sugar in a 12 ounce serving, and some have upwards of 40 grams of sugar—equivalent to about 10 teaspoons of sugar—and 200 or more calories in a 12-ounce serving.
Remember that juice mentioned earlier from the juice bar?
