Diet Food

Apparently, my article called So-Called Healthy Foods to Avoid at All Costs has stirred some interest and perhaps even some controversy, so it seems necessary to explore the topic a little further. The controversy stems from one particular item on my list of so-called healthy foods that should be avoided, and that is fruit juices.

Allow me to recap what was discussed in So-Called Healthy Foods to Avoid at All Costs. In that article I outlined various foods that are typically touted as healthy foods that are not necessarily bad for you, but they do not help you lose weight, and in fact, can actually make you gain weight. Therefore, they should not be part of your healthy weight loss diet. Perhaps the biggest offender on my list was fruit juices.

As I wrote in my previous article, fruit juices can wreak havoc on your healthy weight loss. Please keep in mind I am referring to freshly squeezed, 100% natural fruit juices, not the store-bought, sugar-saturated abominations with a certain percentage of real fruit juice. Those should not be considered healthy in ANY diet, much less one of healthy weight loss.

But even 100% natural fruit juices with no sugar added can be dangerous. For example, a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice with no sugar added has about 110-120 calories, very little calcium and almost no fiber. One complete orange has around 50 calories, 4 grams of fiber and 150% of your recommended daily dose of Vitamin C.

Why is the fiber important? The fiber helps your body resist the absorption of the natural sugars in the orange. When you drink the orange juice, your body does not get the fiber it needs to resist the sugar, so you will have a spike in your blood sugar level. When you eat the orange, the fiber will help your body resist the sugar and therefore prevent a spike in your blood sugar level. The fiber in the orange will also prevent the excess sugar from being converted into fat.

The same thing happens with apple juice. A glass of apple juice contains 120 calories and almost no fiber. One apple contains about 70 calories and 4 grams of fiber. Also, most of the valuable nutrients in apples are found in the skin, so when you skip the skin you are missing out on those nutrients.

Drinking one glass of fruit juice with breakfast is not bad for you. The mistake most people looking to lose weight make is thinking that they can drink as much fruit juice as they want because it is healthy for you. That is the concept that needs to be changed. That said, the healthiest way to consume fruit is by eating the whole fruit with a glass of water.

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