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Fruit Drinks Aren't Much Better For You Than Soda: Study (vox.com)
An anonymous reader cites a study on Vox: One of the biggest public health wins of recent decades has been America's slow shift away from soda. But there's pretty good evidence that Americans are still getting hoodwinked by juices and other sugary beverages. Data from Euromonitor, which analyzed U.S. retail beverage sales over the past five years, shows that while the soda category is shrinking, juice sales have held steady, and sales of energy and sports drinks have been growing. An article in BMJ Open demonstrates the extent of the problem: The researchers looked at how much of the American diet is composed of ultra-processed foods and added sugars. They found that 58 percent of total energy intake -- more than half of the calories Americans consume! -- came from foods that are packed with lots of flavors, colors, and sweeteners. And almost 90 percent of the added sugars Americans consume came from heavily processed foods -- the two main sources being soft drinks (17 percent) closely followed by fruit drinks (14 percent). (In this case, 'fruit drinks' refers to processed juices with added sugars.)
How you get too much sugar is basically irrelevant.
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This should not be a surprise to anyone who reads the nutrition label of what they are eating and drinking.
It seems to claim 'orange juice' is very high in sugar, but then implies it means orange juice with added sugar, not pure OJ.
Pure orange juice has about 8.5% of sugar and about 2% of other carbohydrates. That could be called 'very high'
Sure, sugar is sugar but...
Just go into any American Supermarket and look at the ingredients of the things that you put in your basket.
How many have lots of 'High Fructose Corn Syrup'?
You don't need all that sugar. IT is used to mask the crap/cheap ingredients the food processors use.
In some markets it is almost impossible to buy bread that does not contain the evil syrup. I bake my own bread and the amount of sugar (Honey) I add to it is tiny when compared to supermarket bread.
I don't have any other sugar in my home. You don't need it.
Pure orange juice has about 8.5% of sugar and about 2% of other carbohydrates. That could be called 'very high'
Not only that, but it's pretty close to what most sodas are, and most juices are have similar numbers as well. It also doesn't take much juice (14 oz, even if it's "natural" or "organic" fruit juice to meet food religion requirements) to exceed the FDA recommendation for simple sugars per day, which is likely too high at this point.
Overconsumption of simple sugars are likely *THE* reason why a lot of people have high cholesterol and fatty liver, and in a 2,000 calorie diet you should probably be consuming less than 20g but ideally zero (there's no nutritional or other physiological need for it.) Cutting out dietary cholesterol and saturated fat from your diet is and always has been the wrong advice for treating these.
Slightly off-topic, but: even an home made freshly squeezed glass of fruit juice supposedly contains more sugar than is healthy for you. Think about it: on average, how much oranges would you need to squeeze for a single glass of juice ? Three or four oranges ? Might not seem like a lot, until you consider *eating* those same four oranges at once. The proclaimed result ? Eating a single orange is good for you, but taking in - the sugars of - four oranges is bad.
Even fruit drinks aren't as good as, well, eating the fruit involved because there's lots of nutrients you're losing out on that was in the pulp of the fruit, and besides, the pulp has carbs and fiber that help you feel 'full', which the juice alone will shoot through your system and not satiate you.
Well also they're talking about fruit drinks, not fruit juice. Whenever you see something labelled "fruit drink", it should trigger alarm bells and the question, "why aren't they calling it juice?"
Even things labelled "juice" sometimes have additives, including additional sugar. When it's labelled a "fruit drink", it means that they've doctored it so much and added so much sugar that they're not allowed to call it "juice" anymore. It's sort of like if you go to a mexican restaurant and the stuff they put in the tacos is referred to as something like, "beef-based taco filling." That should immediately make you question what that stuff is.
The culprit is fructose, not simple sugar. Simple sugar is dextrose (glucose), and can be digested and used by every cell in the body. Fructose is digested in the liver and doing so burns through ATP like there's no tomorrow. Fructose digestion is amazingly similar to alcohol digestion, you just don't get the buzz you do with alcohol.
Table sugar (sucrose) is no better because it's half fructose.
Watch the video at youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM