05 Oct Are You Still Consuming These “Healthy” Drinks?
As I went grocery shopping the other day, I went down an aisle and I realized that one FULL side of an aisle was all JUICE! Did you know that one in every three kids are overweight or obese? Did you know these so-called “healthy” drinks are a part of that problem? Juice is ALL the rage these days with young kids and they love it! Of course because it’s loaded with sugar! And you’ll soon find out that that’s not the only thing that is negative about juice.
Now, don’t get me wrong, before I started going to school for nutrition I bought juices. I didn’t know. I just thought they were from fruit and they were good and healthy. The classic orange juice for breakfast, a glass of apple juice for lunch. Juice pouches were awesome for on-the-go drinks with kids! So, what’s exactly the problem?
The sugar amount in juice is outrageous! Sugar is the biggest problem in our society by increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and everything else to be honest. Sugar is known to cause inflammation in the body and chronic inflammation is linked to chronic diseases.
- Sugar promotes dysfunctional hormones. Especially your insulin and leptin. Read here why your hormones are so important to be balanced!
- Too much natural fruit sugars (aka fructose) can cause liver damage.
- Sugar can cause cavities due to the unbalanced blood sugar levels can reduce the phosphorus and calcium needed for healthy teeth. Sugar also can promote plaque & be acidic to your teeth.
- Too much sugar simply cause unhealthy weight gain. Sugar leads to more cravings for carbohydrate foods and you’ll find yourself not truly being satiated and constantly eating.
The sugar in juice is digested differently versus eating a whole fruit. During the juicing process, fiber is left behind, which naturally slows down the digestion of the sugar. Without the fiber, it’s a much faster absorption and can lead to high blood sugar levels.
Juice doesn’t contain the vitamins and minerals you think it does. Most juices that you buy in the store are pasteurized, which means it’s heated to a high heat to destroy any bad bacteria that can contaminate the juice. Because of the high heat, fragile nutrients are also killed in the process. Juice isn’t a nutrient dense source of vitamins and minerals compared to fresh fruit. Most of the vitamins and minerals have to be re-added and fortified from lab-made nutrients.
While there are some organic juices on the market now, most juices are still not organic and many fruits come from the dirty dozen list. 13 pesticides can be found in apple juice, which is one of the most popular fruit juices people buy! Even though organic juices can be lower in pesticides, it unfortunately doesn’t change the sugar content.
So, what do I offer?
I’m not the mom that won’t let her kids have juice when offered at a party or soccer game. Those times aren’t often, but bringing it into the house is a no-go. Mainly water is offered at our house, but I do use some stevia sweetened water infusers to spice up the water routine. We also do flavored coconut water or water infused with lemons, limes, fruit, etc. I love this water bottle because it’s glass to reduce your exposure to plastic chemicals and it has the place where you can stick some fruit in it to flavor up your water!
Do you have any creative ideas to spice up your water? What do you do?
