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Smoothies and fruit juices are a new risk to health
- JoeAltmaier 13y agoSame old risk: drink too much sugary stuff, get fat.
- frooxie 13y agoWell, I didn't know that a smoothie was worse than the fruit it's made of. (Not that I drink smoothies anyway.)
- firasd 13y agoThe fruit has fiber and a lot of other ingredients that slow down absorption of sugar. Not to mention, you wouldn't eat as much fruit in one sitting as the number of fruits you've extracted into a cup. So you're consuming (1) just the sugary liquid extract of the fruit, and (2) getting much more of it from more fruits than if you were eating whole pieces of fruit.
- alan_cx 13y agoCant people just eat actual fruit? Is that really so inconvenient these days? All that energy wasted to process, package, transport, etc. Just eat a damn fruit. I'd love to know how much of this pointlessly processed food contributes to environmental problems compared to cars, for example.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y agoThis is what I don't get about the soylent thing. You can walk into any drug store or corner store and buy a few canned foods that together offer complete nutrition. How the heck is mixing a special powdered drink any easier than opening a can of oysters and a can of sauerkraut and downing the contents? There isn't even a glass to wash with the latter. There is some sort of odd cultural glitch going on in favor of drinks as "healthful." Drink foods make people think of the medicinal brews of yore? I don't know.
- vinchuco 13y ago> How the heck is mixing a special powdered drink any easier Surprising as it may sound, making it just a little harder to prepare can make us value it more (we tend to value our own work). I remember reading about a case of one batter mix that ended up selling more than the "just add water" mixes by asking in the instructions to add the eggs and milk. > a can of oysters and a can of sauerkraut that sounds like an awful diet
- a8da6b0c91d 13y ago> that sounds like an awful diet I wouldn't suggest eating goitrogenic foods like cabbage daily. But other than that what's the problem? Take your varying pick of assorted canned veggies (beets, peas, etc.) and wild sea foods (sardines, salmon, etc.). Instant mashed potatoes and butter for extra calories if needed. The point is all this stuff is at CVS and close to zero prep.
- collin128 13y agoIt was Betty Crocker's cake mix. Cakes are made for celebrating, so making it too easy lessened the experience of baking something to make someone else happy. People felt like it was too easy without the eggs, like they were taking a shortcut. Or so the study says. I can't find the source from my notes.
- kps 13y agoI believed this until your post prompted me to look it up, but apparently it's not true: http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/cakemix.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/cakemix.asp
- a8da6b0c91d 13y agoPerhaps this ignores that powdered eggs do in fact taste horrible compared to fresh. They're also apparently quite bad for you (oxysterols).
- sudomal 13y agoIt is kind of obvious advice. By drinking juice, you are consuming an unusually large amount of processed fruit. I hardly touch the stuff. Stick to water or tea or whatever.
- jonnathanson 13y agoIt seems obvious, but you'd be amazed how many people don't do the mental math. I've actually had this conversation while waiting in line with someone as he got a Jamba Juice. Friend: "Why aren't you getting one?" Me: "Too much sugar. I'm trying to eat better these days." Friend: "What?! This is a smoothie! There's nothing healthier!" Me: "But you just saw them grind up 8 oranges, 5 bananas, and 2 pounds of strawberries and put them in a single cup." Friend: "So?! Fruit is healthy, dumbass!" Me: "Would you ever eat that much fruit in one sitting?" I'll stop before it becomes painful. :) But you get the point. People have strong mental associations between fruit and health, no doubt conditioned by years and years of advertising, and USDA guidelines, and so on. But they don't get the whole "too much of a good thing" logic. That's what makes smoothies particularly dangerous. People know they're not making a great choice when they drink a Coke. People firmly believe they're making a great choice when they drink sugary smoothies and fruit juices. And Jamba Juice, despite being a sugar bomb, at least uses whole fruit. A lot of the packaged drinks use heavily processed crap with added sugar.
- crazygringo 13y agoHeck, I'm amazed when I see people drink a 24oz orange juice. I mean, are you ever going to eat that many oranges?! For the amount of sugar, you might as well be drinking a Coke...
- pyre 13y agoThere is a difference between juice and a smoothie though. Smoothie still has the fiber in it, while orange juice is mostly just juice even if you get it with 'lots of pulp.'
- deleted 13y ago
- Swizec 13y agoMake your own smoothies -> super healthy stuff with plenty of energy to get you through the afternoon slump.
- vixen99 13y agoDepending on the fruit you use you can still overdose on fructose which is, as everyone knows by now, metabolized (interesting story) almost only by the liver - just like alcohol.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- nmerouze 13y agoThe problem is not fruit juices, smoothies or sugar. The problem is that if you drink calories in addition to meals, you get too much calories and you will fatten. I've been drinking fruits, fruit juices and smoothies instead of most other carbs for a year now and I feel great without being fat. It's just about calories.
- dmix 13y agoCalories and fat have been the go-to for mainstream publications as the cause of obesity. But I'd highly recommend watching this talk about high-fructose corn syrup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM It makes a great argument that high-fructose corn syrup might be single handily the cause of the explosion in obesity in the USA in the last two decades.
- nmerouze 13y agoI know this video and he's wrong (HFCS is bad, simple sugar and fruit fructose are not). I would recommend you to read articles on http://dannyroddy.com http://dannyroddy.com http://raypeat.com http://raypeat.com http://andrewkimblog.com http://andrewkimblog.com backed by a lot of studies showing fructose is awesome.
- pothibo 13y agoI'm appalled by your lack of judgment. You dismiss the recording of a university class made by a Ph.D in Endocrinology that worked for 20+ years against the whole industry (which shows resilience and belief). On the other hand you suggest to read articles on 3 websites that looks scammy at best? I feel insulted.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y agoStephan Guyenet is a phd and he also kinda poo-poos the whole "sugar and fructose are toxic" thing. The problem with fructose is just that it's so yummy to humans that its modern ubiquity causes people to overeat.
- DanielBMarkham 13y agoFruit juices maybe. Smoothies are a much more complex issue. I make my own smoothies, 3 or 4 a week. I know what goes in there. I put 1, sometimes 2 cups of fruit or berries. No added sugar, no fruit mixes, no "smoothie mix" stuff. I also add Greek Yogurt, protein, and all sorts of other mostly glycemic-neutral items. I've also seen pre-canned and restaurant smoothies that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Some of these things are sugar bombs. Incredible amount of glycemic impact. You'd be better off just getting a milkshake. But for me, two cups of fruit a day is not a significant health risk at all. While I completely agree that fruit juice and smoothie consumption can be just another sugary alternative to soft drinks, they don't have to be. Unlike store bought fruit juices and soft drinks, with smoothies the entire purpose is that the drinker is in control over exactly what they're consuming.
- j_m_b 13y agoBetter title: Smoothies and fruit juices are THE new risk to health
- 16s 13y agoDiabetes too. That's a huge problem in the US. And many people who are diabetic are not excessively over-weight. Those who are not diabetic, are pre-diabetic. "Over 25 million people in the US have diabetes, and close to 80 million are pre-diabetic." - From American Diabetes Association IMO, this problem is way larger than the former cigarette health problem as more people consume sugary drinks and foods than smoked cigarettes.
- ihsw 13y agoIndeed, the scale of the issue extends to the very young. The worst cases of smoking-related cancer are the result of starting smoking at a very young age, not unlike how obesity and type 1 diabetes are especially destructive when encountered at very young ages.
- jakobe 13y agoIt's often quite surprising to read the ingredient list on these smoothies. They consist largely of apple juice concentrate, and rather small amounts of the fruits advertised on the front.
- eru 13y agoBananas are also common.
- iamshs 13y agoThis is what I would like to know more about. Other day I picked up a 32oz smoothie, which said this is equivalent to 40 strawberries, 1 banana and 6 apples. How is that possible in only $5? Do they get fruits so cheap to make up for other costs? And true enough, there was strawberry puree, banana puree but apple juice concentrate and apple puree in it.
- crazygringo 13y agoFrom what I understand, fruit is a LOT cheaper at the "source" -- before they're shipped, individually sold, etc. Which is why it's SO much cheaper to buy jam, than to make it yourself. However, if you think of it purely from a volume standpoint... if you stuck 6 apples and 40 strawberries in a blender, I have a feeling that's gonna add up to significantly more than 32oz. Maybe they're really tiny apples...
- jmccree 13y agoAlso, they can use fruit that doesn't look as pretty or is lower quality. Fruit used for juices are those not pretty enough to sell, fruit used for concentrate is those not tasty enough for "pure" juice.
- VLM 13y ago> Which is why it's SO much cheaper to buy jam, than to make it yourself. Thats news to me. I mostly can weird stuff you can't buy off the shelf in America for obvious reasons, like peach rum sauce (basically a boozy peach smoothie) or brandied every fruit you can think of (brandied apples are my favorite) Anyway buying individual serving fruit is probably going to be as uneconomical as buying single serving jam, pretty expensive. When I buy a couple shipping flats of peaches, for example, its only a couple bucks each. Ditto crates of apples. At least in season. I think if you bought one apple at a time from a convenience store that could add up, but to keep an apples-to-apples comparison (groan) you'd need to compare that to the price of single serving jam packets, which are kinda expensive compared to an entire jar.
- mcot2 13y agoThe problem also seems to be portion size related. On the larger end of the spectrum some of these smoothies can be over 20 ounces.
- joemaller1 13y agoWell yeah. The health benefits of fruit are generally oversold anyway. But this will be met with mockery, "I can't have soda and now fruit* is bad for me too?! Scientists are dumb." * this is where they miss the point.
- meerita 13y agoEverything will be killing us in the future. Now it's the smoothies and fruit juices. I don't know what this health-society pretends, if ending all kind of consuming substances or really wasting time producing FUD. No offense to anyone.
- ihsw 13y agoYes, however there is a coordinated effort on a global scale to cause people to be addicted to a substance to the detriment of their health. That is the key difference.
- hrkristian 13y agoWhy would anyone be offended? For some odd reason you're just exaggerating as if you haven't even bothered reading the article, or the valuable comments here either for that matter.
- IgorPartola 13y agoFor those making their own smoothies: I use kefir as a base. It is thicker, has very little, easily overpowered taste, has the kinds and amounts of probiotics that yogurt claims but often fails to deliver, and is easier to digest than milk. I normally add a banana, protein powder, and sometimes berries (which are lower on calories than an equivalent amount of fruit). Delicious, and aside from the protein powder, these are all things I would consume as individual items.
- dodyg 13y agoFruits contain fibers that are beneficial for your digestive system and control the spike of sugar level in you body. If you put them in a blender, you destroy much of the fibers and one of the major benefit of eating fruit.
- coin 13y agoOr worse, removing the fiber during the juicing process.
- technel 13y agoBlending speeds up digestion and reduces satiety versus eating whole fruit, but (unlike juicing) I haven't seen any evidence that it destroys fiber. Do you have a reference?
- pyre 13y agoApparently the lowered glycemic index for foods of a smaller particle size is only for starchy foods (smaller particles hydrolyze easier, making them higher GI). So while my statement may have held true for starches, it wouldn't for fruits. I have no idea about smoothies! It's out of the scope of the paper, though, so all we can say is that the study suggests that juicing increases diabetic risk and whole fruits lower it. Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/veg/comments/1le10o/eating_fruit_cuts_diabetes_risk_but_juice_raises/cbz2hd3 http://www.reddit.com/r/veg/comments/1le10o/eating_fruit_cut...
- dodyg 13y ago"Moreover, the process of blending fruit destroys its latticework of insoluble fiber, whose job it is to slow food’s digestion and absorption from the intestine into the blood, explains Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California-San Francisco" http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2013/03/pure_organic_buddyfruit_the_case_against_blended_fruit_snacks.html http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2013/03/pure...
- adamdicarlo 13y agoDoes chewing partly destroy the fibers, too?
- ChrisNorstrom 13y agoDO NOT DRINK FRUIT JUICES / SMOOTHIES without a straw. The acidity from the fruit will demineralize and erode your teeth. Here's what happened to my two front teeth. http://min.us/lbzsDfIjfJqxOz http://min.us/lbzsDfIjfJqxOz Luckily my two front teeth are large enough to sand and grind past the damaged bottom portions and look normal again. It happened in just 2 weeks of drinking fruit juices twice a day.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- s_q_b 13y agoWe need a social-shift that treats sugary drinks more like we treat alcohol. I'm not saying let's only sell Coca-Cola to 21-year-olds, but rather that the social stigma should be different. A sugary beverage should be a celebratory drink, reserved for special occasions, like beer or wine, not a staple of our diet.
- xd 13y agoI don't see society conforming to your ideals any time soon. Hell, I love nothing more than celebrating the end of a hard days work with a beer. IMO people need to worry about sitting down all day way before worrying about sugary drinks.
- s_q_b 13y agoHell, I love nothing more than celebrating the end of a hard days work with a beer. No disagreement from me. I would simply suggest that people think the same way about a Coke. There's nothing wrong with celebrating the end of a day with a beer, but most people would look askance if you were drinking them all day at your desk. So why is it considered normal to do the same with a caffeine and sugar concoction that we know is highly dangerous? As to the standing desk issue, I think it's most an issue of being sedentary in general than standing vs. sitting. There's nothing particularly natural about standing in a single place for hours either.
- JohnTHaller 13y agoUnfortunately, the 'junk drink' companies have worked VERY hard to get soda et al to be treated as every day, every meal drinks. Heck, Coke was working for a while to come up with a way to have every home have a Coke faucet in the kitchen next to water many years back.
- cliffu 13y agoI think your point is muddied by "celebratory" and "special occasions", which is too bad because it's a good point; but it's going to be lost on people who have a beer or glass of wine with dinner, even though we probably all agree that drinking a "big gulp" beer at work is inappropriate and maybe we should feel that way about colas too.
- elchief 13y agoDoes anyone have evidence that blending and immediately drinking fruit has less fibre than eating the same amount of fruit unblended?
- Karunamon 13y ago>All sugars are equal in their bad effects, says Popkin Wait, what? I thought that HFCS was significantly worse than everything else.
- cowcatcher 13y ago"a new risk to health" -- They are actually a newly identified risk. They are not new. Usual sloppy writing that you find in newspapers, I suppose.
- Shorel 13y agoI was scared of the title. Thankfully, I make my own smoothies, with no sugar.