Are fruit juices the nutritional wasteland we believe?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. A nutritional wasteland primed to rot your teeth and fill you with empty calories. Fruit juices. They've been vilified for years now. But should we really feel guilty for sipping a freshly squeezed OJ? Well, Sarah Keogh, dietician and founder of Eat Well, is with me. Good morning, Sarah. Morning, Clare.
What are the misconceptions about fruit juices?
Did you have orange juice this morning? I didn't. I didn't.
I wasn't organised enough.
Do you steer clear?
I don't avoid it. It's not something I'm actually a big fan of just myself personally. But it's not something that I would be deliberately avoiding for any kind of particular reason.
But we have had sort of increasing warnings over the years about fruit juice, particularly when it comes to giving them to children. Do you think they're justified?
Absolutely. I mean, that's the bad news is that a lot of those are kind of what we talk about in terms of fruit juice is justified. I mean, fruit juice is great in the sense that it's it does lots of vitamin C in it. There's going to be antioxidants in it. You know, a small glass of fruit juice will count towards one of your five a day. The problem is that on the flip side, when we drink fruit as fruit juice, the amount of what we call free sugars goes up. So, you know, we hear a lot about sugar being bad for us and, you know, a little bit of sugar is absolutely fine. But if you say eat an apple, for example, it'll have maybe 10 grams of naturally occurring sugars in there, but your body has to process through the fibre and the pith and everything else.
So it's very slowly digested. When we squeeze that into juice and you have a glass of fruit juice, you could have maybe four or five times that amount of sugar in there. But it's also free sugars. And what that means, it's digested and absorbed very rapidly. And that's where we see an effect possibly on things like blood sugar levels. But the big effect is teeth. If you're sort of eating fruit, we don't tend to see a big negative effect on teeth from eating fruit unless you're doing it like nonstop all day long. But with juice, we do. It softens the enamel because it's quite acidic. So, you know, if you're having juice for breakfast, you need to wait an hour before you brush your teeth because it will have softened the enamel.
So it's a teeth issue with that. And it's that sugar issue. And the problem is, is that when people drink large amounts of fruit juice, it behaves in the body similar to the way the sugar and soft drinks behaves. So we don't say ban it, but we do say limit it. So down to like 150 mils a day. really what you're looking at for fruit juice, which is quite a small glass.
Are the health warnings about fruit juice justified?
It is a small glass, but it's about balancing risk, isn't it? And we hear this a lot from the preventative cardiologist, Dr. Paddy Barrett, who's in here with us regularly. It's about weighing up the pros and cons. Like if you're somebody who is not getting your five a day in terms of fruit and vegetables, in that instance, is it wise to introduce the small glass of juice?
Definitely.
I would. And, you know, where I would go if someone was kind of really struggling, a lot of people do struggle even with kind of texture fruit and things like that. Smoothies are brilliant because if you actually and when you make yourself at home where you've actually put the strawberries and the banana and everything in and you physically puree them and then you drink the pureed fruit, that's different to a fruit juice. because you're actually still getting all of the fibre with that. And it's that bit slower digested. You know, so the smoothies actually that you make at home, the reason bought smoothies can be more of an issue is they often are a huge amount of apple juice with a little bit of puree in there.
And again, if you're stuck, you know, it's not the end of the world. But if you're making a smoothie at home, that's actually quite good. And I'd work with lots of clients who really do struggle with kind of eating sort of fruit. And I think we get very excited about, you know, our smoothies bad for us and nobody ever goes around going soup bad for us.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:27
2
What are the misconceptions about fruit juices?
0:27–2:23
3
Are the health warnings about fruit juice justified?
2:23–3:42
4
How does fruit juice compare to whole fruits in terms of sugar?
3:42–6:55
5
What impact does fruit juice have on dental health?
6:55–8:52
6
How can we balance fruit juice consumption in our diet?
8:52–8:57