When I was a kid we always had juice at home that we could slurp down throughout the day because since it comes from fruit it is healthy right? Well it turns out that is wrong.
If you saw someone making a drink of some sort and they proceeded to put 6 teaspoons of sugar in it when they were done would probably think that they were unconcerned about their health in any fashion, yet when someone grabs a "healthy" juice you would think the opposite. Well guess what? They are essentially the same thing.
This problem is made even bigger when you look at the juices that are generally available in minimarts or convenience stores since these juices made by various gigantic companies like Minute Maid contain a ton of added sugar because I guess the fruit wasn't sweet enough on its own.
I don't know how they get away with it, but a lot of juice companies will advertise on the bottle that it is 100% juice, but then when you read the container it has all these chemical names in it. It has to contain these chemicals because they act as a preservative that if the bottle didn't contain that, the juice inside would spoil in just a few days. Obviously this doesn't work out very well for Tropicana's profitability so they need to extend the life with some mystery chemicals and in order to combat the bitter taste that naturally occurs with juices over time they add a bunch of sugar or even worse, high-fructose corn syrup.
I trainer once said to me that if you want to have a fruit and vegetable lifestyle this is a good thing, but if you must drink one of the two to drink your vegetables and eat your fruit. The reason behind this is because you probably wouldn't ever sit down and eat 5 oranges in a row, but that is about what a large class of orange juice contains and even though it is natural, most fruits are nature's desserts and all this extra sugar is going to have detrimental effects on your health.
Furthermore, a great many mass produced juices are pasteurized because they have to be in order to kill off bacteria but in this process they actually destroy a lot of the nutritional aspects of the drink such as vitamins.
I remember when I was a kid and we were drinking Kool-Aid (because my family was not rich and all poor people drank Kool Aid) and I was kind of horrified about how much sugar went into making a gallon of this popular drink that doesn't really exist anymore. It got phased out because it wasn't "healthy" but as it turns out most juices you an buy at the store are just as bad from a sugar standpoint.
I'm not saying to not enjoy yourself. Live your life in a way that makes you happy and try to find some balance. But if you are one of the people out there that thinks they are giving a kick to their health by drinking juice all the time, you may actually be drinking diabetes and weight gain as well.
Everything in moderation is key!
From athlete to fat ass to the strongest I have been in my life over the course of 20 years. I lost 50 lbs and kept it off by following some small, manageable goals over the course of several years. I strongly believe that if I can do it, so can others
