Paying More For Less
I recently saw an ad on TV for grape juice. The scene opens on a field filled with beautiful grape vines and gorgeous, plump grapes. The sun is shining brilliantly as children play around the vines. Then the camera cuts to two farmers, a father and son. They are honest, hard-working farmers who exude integrity and pride. One of the farmers says that everything in their grape juice comes directly from their grapes which are wholesome and good for you. The other farmer adds that something that comes from something good has to be good too.
I will admit the ad makes you want to rush out and force your kids to drink the grape juice. But is juice really good for you? What makes a grape good for you is that it has fiber, vitamins, and minerals. The least good thing about a grape is the sugar in it. The sugar in a grape comes with a ton of volume provided by the fiber. The fiber in the grape forces your body to release the small amount of sugar in the grape slowly rather than all at once like an injection of glucose straight into your blood stream. You have to squeeze a lot of grapes to get enough juice for one glass. In fact you would have to squeeze a lot more grapes to make a glass of grape juice than you could eat. That is what makes juice so bad for you. It is all the sugar but none of the fiber. Juice is an injection of sugar right into your blood stream.
The same is true for all juices like apple, pineapple, etc. You are much better off eating the whole fruit with a tall glass of water. Now one glass of juice is not going to kill you just like one cigarette isn’t going to kill you. Just like a cigarettes, repeated exposures over time are what matters. Juice has no intrinsic nutritional value above the whole fruit and over time is detrimental to your health and your children’s health. The convenience of those juice boxes with their cute little straws and clever packaging should not fool you. By processing the fruit into juice, the manufacturers are able to increase the cost of the item per nutritional content considerably. You are, in fact, paying more for less. Grab the real fruit instead.
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