Nutrient values for raw juices?
February 9, 2011 6:01 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for nutrient data for raw fruit & vegetable juices, such as those produced at home with juicers (Champion, Omega, Breville, etc.)
The USDA nutrient database has the basic information for raw fruits & vegetables, but not for their juices.
My assumption is that any skin, fiber, etc. filtered out may have significant nutritional value, so it would be nice to learn more about this.
The USDA nutrient database has the basic information for raw fruits & vegetables, but not for their juices.
My assumption is that any skin, fiber, etc. filtered out may have significant nutritional value, so it would be nice to learn more about this.
Most home juicers filter out most of the pulp, and so most of the fibre etc from juice anyway. Juice a glass, let it settle, filter again and compress what's at the bottom and you'll see that it takes very little particulate matter to make juice look cloudy and wholesome.
Some databases (like the one at calorieking.com) allow you to search for products, so look for commercial juice that's not pulp free (or has pulp added) and you'll have some indication of what your home juice is like. For example, a comparison of Tropicana's Fruit/Vegetable Juices: Pure Premium, Orange, Lots of Pulp and the same company's pulp-free orange juice shows very little difference: same calories, same carbs, same protein and potassium; the pulp-free has 4g less sugar and 20mg more potassium. A random cloudy vs clear apple juice comaprison showed that the clear juice had fewer calories and less sugar, but that could be down to a range of factors.
So my advice is to assume they're pretty much equal in terms of nutrient content, and stick to eating whole fruit and drinking water!
posted by obiwanwasabi at 6:56 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
Some databases (like the one at calorieking.com) allow you to search for products, so look for commercial juice that's not pulp free (or has pulp added) and you'll have some indication of what your home juice is like. For example, a comparison of Tropicana's Fruit/Vegetable Juices: Pure Premium, Orange, Lots of Pulp and the same company's pulp-free orange juice shows very little difference: same calories, same carbs, same protein and potassium; the pulp-free has 4g less sugar and 20mg more potassium. A random cloudy vs clear apple juice comaprison showed that the clear juice had fewer calories and less sugar, but that could be down to a range of factors.
So my advice is to assume they're pretty much equal in terms of nutrient content, and stick to eating whole fruit and drinking water!
posted by obiwanwasabi at 6:56 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
I've just read your question more closely and realised you're not necessarily looking for a comparison between commercial juices and homemade juice, but between juice and the equivalent amount of whole fruits/vegetables.
Yes, juicing removes most or all of the fibre from the fruit, and the pulp contains a high level of residual carbohydrates, sugars and protein. Using apples as an example, and taking the middle of the range of estimates of the number of pounds of apples needed to make a gallon of juice (14 lbs):
14 lbs of apples contain 3300 calories, 13g of fat, 876g of carbs, 152g of fibre, 660g of sugar, 16.5g of protein, 381mg of calcium and 6800mg of potassium.
1 gallon of juice contains 1700 calories, 3.6g of fat, 425g of carbs, 3.6g of fibre, 396g of sugar, 2.2g of protein, 254mg of calcium and 4322mg of potassium.
So you're leaving behind almost all the fibre, about half the carbs and sugar, most of the protein, and maybe a third of the calcium and potassium.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 7:08 PM on February 9, 2011
Yes, juicing removes most or all of the fibre from the fruit, and the pulp contains a high level of residual carbohydrates, sugars and protein. Using apples as an example, and taking the middle of the range of estimates of the number of pounds of apples needed to make a gallon of juice (14 lbs):
14 lbs of apples contain 3300 calories, 13g of fat, 876g of carbs, 152g of fibre, 660g of sugar, 16.5g of protein, 381mg of calcium and 6800mg of potassium.
1 gallon of juice contains 1700 calories, 3.6g of fat, 425g of carbs, 3.6g of fibre, 396g of sugar, 2.2g of protein, 254mg of calcium and 4322mg of potassium.
So you're leaving behind almost all the fibre, about half the carbs and sugar, most of the protein, and maybe a third of the calcium and potassium.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 7:08 PM on February 9, 2011
Response by poster: Thanks for the responses. The first database is moderately useful, including nutrient values for a couple of vegetables (carrot & celery) and about 20 fruits. The rest are mainly for commercial fruit juices, mixed vegetable juices, baby foods. etc. CalorieKing definitely seems more geared to commercially available foods. It does have an entry for a beet juice product, but it lists no vitamin content at all ... Will keep looking :-)
posted by woodman at 4:26 PM on February 12, 2011
posted by woodman at 4:26 PM on February 12, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by spasm at 6:50 PM on February 9, 2011