Disappointed

[poliphilo]

Ailz- who has been educating herself on the skulduggery perpetrated by food companies and supermarkets- tells me the "fresh" orange juice I drink for breakfast contains as much sugar as coca-cola and is quite as worthless nutritionally. "Basically, just sugar water," she says.

And I thought I was doing myself so much good...

Comments

[matrixmann]

...Basically, nutrition is a battlefield these days.
As just there's so much playing round with food additives, sugar that originally doesn't isn't part of a thing and so much other kinds of stuff you actually didn't want to be in your food if you knew how it transforms.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, as I'm becoming aware, the big food companies are not our friends.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Unless you pick the oranges off the tree like we do and squeeze the juice yourself, adding nothing to it, you won't get 100% unadulterated orange juice. (Or buy the oranges at the supermarket and squeeze them yourself...)

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Or buy the oranges and eat them! That way you get all the nutrients and the fibre makes you feel more satisfied.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed. But I live in an orange belt here in Spain and I know a lot of people who don't like to peel oranges as odd as that may sound. So they juice them and eat the remaining pulp in the juicer with a spoon.
:)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's the answer, of course. And I do also buy oranges and eat them as they are.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed.

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

Even then the fact that you are taking out the fibre makes it sugar water - with a nice flavour - fructose needs the fibre to work healthily. Which is part of the problem for obesity - lots of glucose/fructose and very little fibre.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know. And that's why I say that here in Spain, many people juice the oranges and then eat the remaining pulp from those oranges. I peel and eat the oranges from our trees but some people are too fussy about getting their fingers sticky. LOL

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Over here we can buy FCOJ (frozen concentrated orange juice). It ain't perfect, but all it says in the ingredients list is "orange juice." No added sugars or preservatives.

Chez Blanchard, we figure that, nutritionally speaking, there's probably not much difference between FCOJ and regular OJ (or even oranges) that's been held at low temperatures and trucked across the continent. FCOJ is a bit less expensive and certainly less weight in the shopping bag.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ailz tells me that even products that contain nothing but fruit juice have been messed about with so that all the goodness has been removed. :(

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

You don't need added sugar - there is more sugar in fruit juice - especially 100% juice - than in a coke. You need the fibre to alleviate it.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

If you just look at carbohydrate, protein and fat content they're fairly similar, but fruit juices - even processed ones - undoubtedly have more vitamin contents than Coca Cola, so there's that to remember.

Personally I mainly drink apple juice, simply because I have such a ready supply of it. (And at least I know exactly what's in it, having made it myself.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I could be drinking home made apple juice too- I suppose.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Most of my supply of apple juice is made at the family juice weekend - it's a lot easier to make 1200 litres of juice when you are a horde of people than to make 50 litres alone... There are so many processes involved that you really have to WANT it to do it alone. I'm not actually sure I recommend it - though the result is brilliant!

Picking, washing, grating, pressing, bottling, capping and pasteurising is just an awful lot if you want to make any significant quantity of juice. (Not to mention keeping everything clean and sterile throughout the processes as no preservatives are added...)

So my advice is to eat the apples as they are - or cook with them. I have bags and bags of raw, cut-up apples in my freezer, ready to be used in apple pies, apple trifles, and even as a sweet element in curries or for stuffing roast pheasants. (Also works for smoothies, of course.)

Can you tell I grew up with apple farming in my family? When I was a child and couldn't sleep I'd sometimes get a cup of hot apple juice in bed to comfort me... I still occasionally drink that when I have a cold or a 'flu and need comforting!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We bought a fruit press a couple of years back and I had a go at making apple juice- but it was such hard work...

We had a huge crop the first year we were here and stored them as they were in the garage and they lasted months. We ate a lot of apple pie that winter.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I bought a fruit press last year and used it - but it was as much out of a sense of nostalgia as anything. And it was a LOT easier making grape juice where I could just put in the rinsed clusters of grapes and it took little effort to turn the handle.

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

Fibre is what you need - eat the whole apple - the juice is just sweet.

It's why fruit juice seems so much sweeter than the fruit. Fructose needs fibre to keep it under control. Glucose is digested throughout the body, but fructose has to go to the liver. If the liever is busy with the rest of the meal it just dumps it with triglycerides - not good for your blood. If you eat the fibre it slows down the digestion of fructose and then the liver has time to deal with it.

Athletes can get away with fruit juice, after they've exercised, but it's a reason why there are so many people who are suffering from being thin on the outside and fat on the inside. Fructose turns into fatty liver if you're not careful

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

But surely if one has a glass of juice with breakfast, the fibres will be provided by the rest of the meal anyway - or at least they ought to be. I think you're right that we all need to pay a bit of attention to what we eat - some more than others, of course, but generally all of us. And at least here in Denmark the advice is that juice can only replace one of the recommended 6 portions of fruit and veg per day.

And in terms of preservation, preserving juice for a full year is simpler than preserving entire fruits. (Though I do like to freeze at least some of my apple bounty or using them as a base for marmalades.)

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

She's right. the best way to know what's in your juice is to squeeze it yourself.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, but buying it in cartons is easier. :(

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

We get a "freshly squeezed never from concentrate" that claims to be just orange juice. But even it is pasteurized.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The stuff we buy is supposed to be nothing but juice- but that doesn't mean it hasn't been processed.