About Fructose |
Does Fruit Juice Make You Fat?
There is a dangerous misconception about so-called healthy fruit juices. At worst, this misconception probably contributes to health problems and obesity. At best, it makes losing excess pounds more difficult or even impossible.
Most people believe fruit juice is healthy. After all, fruit juice is from fruit and we all know that fruit is healthy.
But, just because fruit is healthy doesn't mean fruit juice is healthy. In fact, some experts insist that juice is the bad part of the fruit.
Here's why.
Fructose is Sugar!
It's not healthy because fructose, which makes fruit sweet, is sugar! And sugar is sugar. Fructose is virtually the same as white table sugar in your body. Therefore, drinking a glass of orange juice is probably just as unhealthy as drinking a glass of cola. Fruit juice (even with no sugar added) is simply NOT healthy and switching from soda to fruit juice will NOT help you lose weight!
Dr. Robert Lustig, a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of California in San Francisco, argues that too much fructose and not enough fiber appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic because of their effects on insulin.
So his idea is that when you eat a piece of fruit you are consuming a good dose of fiber with the fructose, but when consuming fruit juice you are getting just the fructose, without the fiber.
Watch Dr. Robert Lustig in this video clip from the ABC News Nightline Show.
So, the problem with all fruit juices is that they are loaded with fructose (which is sugar) and there is no counter-balancing fiber, as is the case when eating the whole fruit. While the conventional thinking is that fructose must be healthy because it comes from fruit, the opposite is true. And, looking at fruit juice labels and TV commercials, it becomes very clear that the fruit beverage industry has not bothered to dispel that notion. In fact, they do the opposite.
Further complicating the high doses of sugar you receive when drinking a fruit juice, is the fact that your body is getting this huge sugar dose in liquefied form enabling the sugar to hit your liver faster. And, that's not good!
Remember, fructose is sugar. And in your body, fruit juices are not much different than soda, since they are both loaded with sugar. Because fructose is sugar and sugar is bad, fruit juice can't possibly be healthy. So, it seems entirely logical that fruit juice is every bit as fattening as soda!
Lustig makes a compelling case for drastically reducing our sugar intake.
Through advertising and fruit juice labels we are led to believe that the sugar in fruit juice (fructose) is a healthy alternative to sucrose… but it is NOT.
Lustig and other experts and researchers suggest that consuming too much fructose overwhelms the body's capacity to process it. Excess fructose consumption, like excess sucrose consumption (or alcohol consumption) causes insulin resistance --- leading to metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and maybe some cancers. The Robert Lustig lecture title "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" can be seen on YouTube and it is a real eye-opener. He convincingly dispels the notion that 'fruit sugar' (fructose) is any better than white table sugar. Try to watch it. It's long at 1 hour and 29 minutes, but worth it
Watch Dr. Robert Lustig's video lecture - Sugar: The Bitter Truth.
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