Q: “Your article in the Orlando Sentinel was very interesting and helpful. When you mention to avoid fruit juices does that also include orange juice? I’ve been drinking orange juice every morning for many many years (77 years old!).Also have been recently eating grapes and cantaloupes on a daily basis. I exercise six days a week but do have a little stomach on my 5’8″ frame and weigh 160 lbs. Hope you will respond!”
A: Thank you for reading and reaching out to ask about this. All fruit juices are primarily fruit sugars (fructose) and, when consumed, they can spike the blood sugar similarly to other sweets. Packaged or bottled fruit juices (compared to fresh-squeezed orange juice, for example) are pasteurized. Pasteurization is a process of treating the juice with high heat, essentially cooking it, which further concentrates the fruit sugars.
This is similar to eating a fresh apple compared to eating an apple pie filling – the fresh apple is not nearly as sweet as the baked apple pie filling. The high heat makes it sweeter than the fresh, raw fruit. When fruits are eaten whole, for example eating a whole orange compared to any orange juice, there is fiber in the fruit which helps it metabolize a little slower than just the juice by itself. Eating the whole orange will have a milder effect on the blood sugar than drinking any type of orange juice.
Congratulations on keeping up with your exercise so diligently! I hope this was helpful!
Samadhi
If you’d like more health tips, check out Samadhi’s book, Healthy Eating, Healthy Living, Healthy You.
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