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Chapter 1: 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.
Chapter 2: 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.
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Chapter 3: 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. You know, it's kind of the same thing. Is it? Well, do you know what I mean? It's good. Soup is fantastic. You know, it's vegetables.
Just because it's pureed doesn't mean it's bad for you. Whereas when we puree fruit, people kind of go, oh my God, it's bad for you. It's not.
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Chapter 4: How does fruit juice compare to whole fruits in terms of sugar?
And the thing with smoothies is, you know, you can make them with milk instead of fruit juice. So that lowers the sugar and it gives a little bit of protein. You know, there's nice things you can do with it.
But like that, if, you know, the antioxidants and the vitamins that we get from fruit and veg are so important that if you're someone who really struggles to eat fruit and veg, a glass of fruit juice is definitely better than nothing.
OK, but make it yourself if you can, because if you're buying prepackaged smoothies, they often can contain nasties, can't they?
So to be honest, when I look at a lot of the smoothies, most of them are just fruit and fruit juice in them. There's not usually anything terribly bad in an awful lot of the ones that are on the shelf with it.
My only hesitation, as I said, is they tend to be mostly fruit juice with some of the puree, whereas with smoothies you make at home, you're literally just pureeing up the actual fruit and veg. So from a sugar point of view, especially if you use like milk or yogurt or something instead of fruit juice, the sugar content is a little bit lower. The free sugar kind of content is a bit lower.
um that's where i would go if you were doing smoothies and you know it's very easy to make those at home okay what about adding things to the the smoothie that you're making so we hear about seeded fruits so when you were telling us about fiber not losing the fiber and by including that all right does that mean you're better than to add the types of fruits that have seeds in them like raspberries like passion fruit like kiwi perhaps is that even better
Not particularly. I mean, it's there, but if you're having any fruit, it's going to have fibre in it. So even if you have things like, you know, if you puree up a banana, you know, that kind of thing, that's still going to have the fibre is still there in the drink that you're drinking, unlike juice where the fibre is strained out of it.
So, you know, if you want to add the seeded ones, they're absolutely fine if you want to go for those.
But there's no added benefit in terms of reducing the risk of a blood sugar spike?
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Chapter 5: What impact does fruit juice have on dental health?
And the body loves variety. The gut loves variety. So if you're doing a smoothie that has some fruit, some veg, you know, that whole mixture in there, your digestive system really does love that.
Some of those green juices, though, they have a lot of apple juice in them, don't they, to sweeten them up? That's...
that's what i find is particularly the kind of ones that you buy um you know i would look at the label and sort of say well how much of it is is juice and how much of it is the actual vegetable gone into it and again it's this thing you can make these very simply at home you know if you've any kind of blender anything like that um it's to do it now if you're on the go it's it's not the end of the world but yeah i mean it's if you're if you are buying those smoothies i would always for me if i was ever buying them i'm checking how much of it is the actual sort of fruit as opposed to juice that's just been added
OK, so we might be having some orange juice now with the weekend breakfast, the relaxed breakfast. So the advice on on the teeth, if we're having 150 mils of orange juice with breakfast, wait to brush your teeth until after breakfast.
Exactly. Or if you're in a hurry, you could brush your teeth first and then have your fruit juice or wait an hour and then brush after that.
Then you have minty toothpaste taste mixed with orange juice flavour.
Give it five minutes. It doesn't work in fairness.
Why is that? Is that better than brushing them after the juice?
No, it's more just sometimes in the morning, people don't really have an hour to wait before they have their breakfast and then go to work, you know. So if they want to get the teeth kind of cleaned and ready to go, you know, but if you're somebody who's working from home on a day and you can wait the hour, then you can do it that way.
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Chapter 6: How can we balance fruit juice consumption in our diet?
On Newstalk. Conversation that counts.