Can drinking Naked Juice replace eating fruit?

October 14, 2008 1:04 PM

Can drinking Naked Juice replace eating fruit?

I like eating fruit, but I enjoy Naked Juice just as much and it stays in my fridge longer.

Does Naked Juice really have all that fruit in it? The labels say something like, "this has 2 apples, 24 blueberries and 3 bananas in it." So is drinking one bottle the dietary equivalent of eating all of that? Because $2.50 for a bottle is a lot less expensive than buying all that fruit. What's the catch?

posted by nitsuj to food & drink (17 comments total)

The catches:

You're missing out on a lot of fiber (the drinks have very little to none), and juice doesn't fill you up nearly so well as actual fruit does.

Keep in mind that we don't know very well how nutrition works and there's a lot of conflicting information out there. It can be hard to know what you might be missing out on.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 1:10 PM on October 14

Processing food - even purely physical processing like chopping up fruit - changes how your body reacts to it. In this specific case, your body will process the sugar in fruit more quickly, which will raise your blood sugar more rapidly and, depending on how sensitive you are, can lead to unwanted effects.

The other factor that may or may not be an issue is satiety - fullness. If you ate 2 apples, 24 blueberries, and 3 bananas, you'd probably feel reasonably full. If you drank 8 ounces of juice, you probably won't. But the latter has the same calories as the former. Again, this may or may not be a concern, but be aware of it.

That's the catch, basically. There may be specific nutritional changes based on how certain vitamins and minerals are metabolized and the exact process used to make the juice, but it's not exactly the same.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:11 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]

No, you get more sugar and less fiber.
posted by caddis at 1:12 PM on October 14

FWIW, drinking a bottle of Naked usually fills me up as much as eating, say, a bowl of cereal.
posted by nitsuj at 1:12 PM on October 14

After going over the website in detail nowhere does it say that the juice contains 100% of the edible portion of the fruit. I'm pretty sure that labeling on the bottle means that the equivalent of that much fruit was used to extract the juice. My guess would be no, you are missing out on nutrients, particularly fiber and nutrients located in edible skins, when you drink the juice. The issue of expense probably boils down simply to the facts that first, you can use fruit for juice in a condition that nobody would accept from fresh fruit at the grocers and two, you can be a lot more careless in processing it than you can with fresh produce.
posted by nanojath at 1:15 PM on October 14

"Replace" is a hard word to define in this situation. Would properly refrigerated Naked Juice has staved off scurvy in mariners crossing the Atlantic ocean? You betcha. Should someone who eats the USDA recommended fruit servings daily replace them all with Naked Juice? Almost certainly not. Does drinking Naked Juice instead of eating fruit do much to degrade the lifestyle of the average person who drinks Naked Juice? Unlikely, but not certainly not impossible.

Summary: It's probably a better idea to continue to eat fruit AND drink NJ instead of just drink NJ, for the fiber if nothing else. But can you be healthy off just fruit juices? I do it just fine.
posted by Damn That Television at 1:16 PM on October 14

I wouldn't even drink that much juice; just eat the fruit. Juice will make you fat just like drinking Coke. I sampled one juice at random, Antioxidant Berry Blast, and ounce for ounce it has as much sugar as Coke. Not surprising when the main ingredient is apple juice. If you just eat the apple instead you will be filled up by the fiber before you eat the handful of apples it takes to fill a bottle of juice. You will get less sugar and feel satisfied.

Of course everything in moderation. If you drink a bottle an eight ounce bottle a day of this juice it will hardly blow your diet, but if you drink six or seven 12 ounce bottles (like some people do with Coke) then that is well over a thousand calories of juice. Anyway, as a treat it is fine, but it is not health food.
posted by caddis at 1:42 PM on October 14

Juice will make you fat just like drinking Coke

Neither Coke nor juice make people fat. Calories in > calories out makes people fat.

"OMG THIS FOOD HAS CALORIES" is not exactly insightful nutrition information. Especially not when you're comparing things like Juice to Coke rather than Juice to Fruit Equivalent as the OP is looking for.

For example, the juice from the label linked above has 320 calories in the small bottle (160 per serving, 2 servings). If you were to eat nothing but two apples and a banana you're looking at 240ish calories already. The acai berries are easily 100 more calories and that's before we even look at the plum or grapes.

In other words, it looks (at least based on that one particular data point) that drinking this bottle of juice would net FEWER calories than eating the fruit "equivalent".
posted by toomuchpete at 2:11 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]

It's pasteurized. Pasteurization kills all of the nutrients. Stick with fruit.
posted by Zambrano at 2:14 PM on October 14

It's pasteurized. Pasteurization kills all of the nutrients. Stick with fruit.

Cite?
posted by RustyBrooks at 2:48 PM on October 14

Thanks, everyone. Makes sense!
posted by nitsuj at 3:06 PM on October 14

previous related question
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:33 PM on October 14

Cite?

All processed foods lose their nutritional value. It's common knowledge.
posted by Zambrano at 5:35 PM on October 14

Zambrano and RustyBrooks:

Pasteurizing foods and processing foods are not the same thing, first of all.

Pasteurization does actually affect the nutritional content of food. For example, pasteurization does affect the amino acids, and possibly the lactose, in milk. Certain methods of pasteurization reduce the amount of vitamin D in the milk, which is why milk is generally vitamin D fortified. It also reduces the amount of vitamins A, C, riboflavin and thiamin in vegetables/fruits by 50%.

Processed foods are not, by definition, less nutritious. It's certainly true that many processed foods are full of additives that are not healthful, or worse, can actually be damaging (like nitrites). And many of them are just "empty calories" (low nutrient/calorie ratio). Or mostly fat and/or sugar.
posted by Cygnet at 5:59 PM on October 14

All processed foods lose their nutritional value. It's common knowledge.

Speaking of common knowledge, please define 'processed', 'nutritional' and 'value'.
posted by spicynuts at 9:05 PM on October 14

For example, the juice from the label linked above has 320 calories in the small bottle

You know, that is a lot of calories, especially for a drink. For a lot of people 320 calories is a breakfast or lunch, not just a drink. Don't insult our intelligence with some drivel over how this is some meaningless amount of calories. That is more than your average Dunkin Donut, and frankly as almost all sugar, it is not much healthier.
posted by caddis at 11:10 PM on October 14

In the UK we have the '5 a Day' recommendation (five portions of fruit & veg). According to the guidelines no matter how much juice you drink it is only ever considered to be one portion. This is due to the lack of fibre, I believe.
posted by tallus at 6:40 AM on October 15