Sugar, Sugar, Sugar

Happy Halloween!

I'm dressing up as Napoleon Dynamite because if any of you have seen my freshman year picture from high school, you'd think that they modeled Napoleon after me!

Sometimes I get questions sent in from out there in the cyberworld and so instead of answering them for just one person to read, I figured I'd give you all the privilege of getting the answers!

This week, Francisca writes:

"I used to drink a lot of sodas but I switched to juices and water. Will drinking a lot of juice effect my ability to lose weight? I see that they're higher in calories and carbs than diet sodas."

Francisca,

I'm glad you've stopped drinking soda. A 20 oz bottle of Soda has at least 250 calories and ALL of them are from sugar. When you overload your body with that much sugar your insulin levels get out of whack and your blood sugar rises. This can cause inability to focus, hyperactivity (yes, in adults as well) and eventually can lead to obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, and, of course, cavities.

Sodas also have caffeine which is not only addictive, but it also is a diuretic. This means if you are drinking soda and not enough water, you are really asking to be dehydrated. Chronic dehydration is the cause of slow body functioning and hundreds of ailments and illnesses. Many of which could be cured by just drinking more clean, filtered water to bring back your proper hydration levels... but don't tell the FDA I said that!

Now on to juice...

The food industry has led us to believe that juices that we find on the supermarket shelves are good for us.

They are not.

Juices on the shelves of the A & P, Piggly Wiggly and local IGA are loaded with sugar, pasteurized, contain pesticides and essentially are stripped of all their natural nutrients.

Juice, soda... there's really no difference here--minus the caffeine. All the calories from the juice are from sugars as well. So it is certainly not going to help you lose weight.

So, should you drink juice at all? Not from the supermarket...

Here are some of the things you'll read on the juice label and how you should interpret them:

Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup: These are sugars added directly to the juice to make it sweeter. Plain and simple.

Pear Juice or Grape Juice from Concentrate: These are natural sugars that are concentrated to pack an extra sugary boost. Don't be fooled by the names... they are still sugars in a concentrated form... which always is too much sugar.

All Natural: Yes, "All Natural" sounds good, but here's the issue. The "All Natural" apples in your apple juice, could be loaded with pesticides and other chemicals that are used in the production process. "All Natural" just means that the ingredients have been grown... it's not by any means an indication of how they were grown!

Pasteurized: This means the juice was heated to destroy bacteria. Unfortunately, heating also destroys many vitamins as well. Which is why they take the next step.

Enriched: Some juices are enriched... which means that after they've been pasteurized and stripped of all their vitamins, they add those vitamins back to the juice. This is not necessarily a bad thing. What you need to be aware of is three things:

(1) Fruits are perfectly harmonized, which means that each nutrient in a fruit has its natural counterpart. Any enriched juice is just a scientific guess as to what works with what.

(2) The vitamins they add are likely to be synthetic, which are created in a lab, not in the woods.

(3) Your body may not assimilate the vitamins at all. That means you don't take any of it in... it just goes in and, just as fast, goes out.

Yes, you can drink organic juice. This will assure you that there is nothing funky in the juice, but beware... they are still pasteurized and still loaded with sugar. Organic pear juice concentrate and pear juice concentrate are pretty much the same thing... sugar.

Is there any hope?!?!

Yes.

The best type of juices to drink are freshly juiced and organic. These juices are packed with the vitamins and minerals that you need. They are as close to the actually composition of the fruit as possible.

If it's in your budget, buy a juicer and start experimenting with different fruits--apples, pears, watermelon, pineapple, etc. The taste of these are unbelievable. You'll wonder why you ever bothered to buy juice from the store in the first place!

Seems like a lot, so first before any of you get overwhelmed... all I'm going to suggest to you is that you start by getting familiar with the labels on what you are buying. You'll begin to recognize some of the things I'm talking about. Once you've seen them enough, then you can start buying organic, or consider getting a juicer.

Take it slow and you'll get there! Believe me, that's how I did it!

Hope that makes sense... Diet soda is a completely different beast and I'll tackle that one in a week or so.

Stay healthy,
Kevin