You might think that because fruit juice contains ‘X’ amount of fruit per serving that it is healthier than eating fruit, but this isn’t quite true.

In reality, fruit juice doesn’t contain any whole fruits. It contains the liquid from them, so you will be missing out of some fibre and a few other nutrients which are found in the fruit. Fruits are high in fructose, and this means when you have a glass of orange juice you are having 5 oranges worth of fructose, and not 5 oranges worth of other nutrients.

With some juices (particularly cranberry juice) they have added sugar (again, usually fructose) so you will be getting a serious fructose injection.

Dangers of Fructose

Fructose is the natural sugar found in fruits, and is unique on that it can only be metabolised by the liver. High levels of fructose will be stored in the liver as glycogen to be saved for later energy requirements.

High fructose levels increases the activity of CAM-1, which has pro-inflammatory effects on the body. Regularly having high levels of fructose in the body may lead to inflammation illnesses such as peptic ulcers, chronic inflammation and increased oxidative stress.

Conclusion

Fruit juices are not as healthy as having the real fruit. Fruit juices are an unnatural part of diet which our bodies are not designed to consume. Fructose itself is not a nutrient to be demonised, but when taken in large quantities (as with many nutrients), such as that of fruit juices it can cause problems. This can be seen because fruit juice is listed as a pro-inflammatory but fruit is not.

All because a juice has a picture of a fruit on it, and the name of a fruit in the name doesn’t mean it is anything like the fruit nutritionally.