Don’t swallow myths about juicing, experts warn

The Times

Health News

Kat Lay and Tom Whipple

Gerry Gajadharsingh writes:

 You may have noticed that we are in the middle of a “juicing epidemic”; everyone and their grandmother are caught up in a craze that they BELIEVE to be healthy. When I published my iBook last year, “The Health Equation – A Way of Life” I flagged this up but was challenged by many people who simply did not BELIEVE it. I guess it takes a while for ideas to be backed up by research or science and go mainstream.

 Whilst there are benefits to fruit consumption (in moderation), they are still high in sugar. When you process them (juiced or blended etc.) the glycaemic load increases massively, provoking an insulin response in the body, which is considered pro inflammatory. The problem is, having a sugar hit makes you feel great (high levels of sugar don’t often cause immediate negative effects) but it’s the long term problems, such as obesity, high blood pressure, inflammatory conditions, Type 11 diabetes, etc., that are the concern. As Prof Sanders alludes to below, the youth of today may well unfortunately ignore the advice, as they will not feel any immediate negative effects. Ah what’s it like to be young and carefree.

 So what about vegetable juicing? Whilst vegetables mostly don’t have as high a glycaemic load as fruit, the same principle applies regarding the processing (i.e. Juicing and blending), which also pushes up its glycaemic load.

 My advice, if you want to eat fruit? EAT fruit. And if you want to eat vegetables? EAT vegetables. Don’t turn them into a convenient liquid.

 You may feel smug as you pass up a soft drink for a ginger and apple juice that you whipped up at home. However, the rising popularity of juicers poses an unseen threat to public health, experts have warned.

Scientists say that we often underestimate the quantity of sugar in juiced drinks and that despite the success of books promoting them, such as that by the food blogger Ella Woodward, once food has been through a juicer it becomes considerably less worthy than the ingredients list may make it appear.

The problem is that when fruit is put through a juicer, the pulp (or fibre) is separated from the juice and discarded. It still retains all its sugars but has lost the fibre that is crucial to regulating the absorption of natural sugars in the body and slowing their digestion.

“The public need to be aware that any nutritional benefits of fruit juice are vastly outweighed by the staggering amount of liquid sugar it contains,” said Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist based in London. “A standard glass can contain well above over the maximum daily limit recommended by the World Health Organisation of six teaspoons.

“Consumption of fruit juice has been strongly linked to increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which is now at an all-time high in the UK. In my view, fruit juice represents a significant health hazard.”

Nutritionists have previously warned that the juicing industry was selling its products as healthy, using sleight of hand. Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, told the Chicago Tribune: “The fruit juice industry has essentially taken the ‘apple-a-day’ mentality and used it to sell fruit juices as healthy.” He pointed out that while in normal life we would eat two oranges and be full, with juicers we could eat six and not have our appetite affected in any appreciable way.

Even so, juicing continues to make people’s fortunes. Jason Vale, also known as the Juice Master, has been called the “Jamie Oliver of juicing”. He claims that his books, among them 7lbs in 7 days: The Juice Master Diet, have sold 3 million copies — and that the wisdom contained in them helped him to beat psoriasis, eczema, asthma, hay fever and obesity.

Using a standard kitchen blender to blend fruit rather than juice it is recommended as a healthier choice because the fibre is retained in the process. Nutritionists also recommend creating juices made predominantly of vegetables because they contain less sugar.

Action on Sugar, a campaign group against high sugar consumption, said it believed the juicing craze could be contributing to a rise in diabetes and pre-diabetes “particularly if people are drinking more juice as opposed to smoothies, which contain fibre too and therefore may be less of a problem”.

However, Thomas Sanders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London, said that, at least for now, Britain’s juicers will be saved by the one true weapon of all slaves to fashion: youth.

“Obesity is the reason for the increase in type 2 diabetes and it is affecting mainly people in their late fifties and sixties,” he said, “whereas the juice consuming population tends to be a younger age group.”