Eating better is hard. It's especially difficult when you
have a Starbucks, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Sonic and Wienerschnitzel on
every corner. (I kid thee not, from where I'm sitting I can see four of
the aforementioned restaurants from my window.)
You read a lot about how you're supposed to eat a boat load of fruits a day, the idiots models that eat only apples for weeks at a time, and how you're supposed to grab a orange instead of orange flavored sweets.
Sometimes peeling and slices up fruit gets old, and it gets much easier to just pour a glass of juice that promises it's made of pure fruit. You know the drill: No sugar added,100% juice and all that jazz.
So, my question is, why do fruit and fruit juices have to have so much damn sugar and carbs in it?
Take for example Naked's Superfood.
Whether you get the Green
Machine or Black and Blueberry Rush,there are just over
130 calories per serving. This fruit juice seems to be your BFF as you get an insane amount of fruit in one
little bottle.
Take for example the Green Machine which has:
- 2 3/4 Apples
- 1/2 Banana
- 1/3 Kiwi Fruit
- 1/3 Mango
- A hint of pineapple
And that's just the fruit. There are a ton of other bits inside such as Spirulina, spinach and broccoli.
So why then, pray tell, does it have 28 grams of sugar and 33 grams of carbs? Fruits are good for you...but according to it's nutrition facts - also the devil.
I remembered somebody blabbing at me about how great antioxidants were for you, so I thought I'd check out juices made from the two greatest sources of antioxidants: pomegranate and acai.
These two things might sound a bit hippy and ridiculous, but they're both delicious. Really.
Jamba Juices's Acai Super-Antioxidant smoothie sounds like the perfect breakfast - but after looking at the nutrition facts and clocking a whopping 50 grams of sugar in just a 16oz smoothie, I decided that wasn't such a great suggestion. I mean, after doing a bit of research online, apparently we're meant to only have about 35 grams of sugar a day. What the hell?
I figured perhaps Jamba was a bit too fast foody to be the right place to sell healthy sources of antioxidants, so I checked out the Pomegrante Acai Antioxidant drink from Naked Juice, but Jesus Almighty, there are even 31 grams of sugars per serving. PER SERVING. Who in their right mind looks at a little 10 ounce bottle of juice and says, "Yeah, I can get two servings out of that."
Even POM Juice's 100% Pomegrante juice has 34 grams of sugar per serving in it's little bottle of juice. Never mind the 40 grams of carbs!
But POM, unlike Naked or Jamba, address the high sugar and carb count by saying:
"Maybe you’re on a diet (who isn’t?) and are worried about the calories
and carbohydrates in pomegranate juice. Just remember that the
carbohydrates are from naturally occurring fructose and glucose found
in the fresh fruit. And that a single glass of delicious POM Wonderful
Pomegranate Juice won’t make you fat…but may help you be healthy."
I guess you have to pick and choose your demons, eh? Personally, I'd rather chug a bottle of Superfood as it has only 28 grams of sugar and 33 grams of carbs - but even if you wanted to just eat fruit instead of drinking it - even a fucking banana has around 14 grams of sugar in it.
If the government is recommending that we have two to four servings to fruit a day, surely that's enough sugar and carbs to send Jennifer Aniston and any other carb hater into some sort of coma.
This is the exact reason I hate dieting or trying to figure out what the "right" way to eat is. Carbs and sugars are made to sound soooo horrific for you - and then fruit, one of the most natural and healthy foods on the planet, is high in the two things we're meant to avoid having too much of.
What are we supposed to do? Avoid fruit? Avoid juice?
I know that the "all things in moderation" rule is the obvious answer here - but could it be that carbs and sugars just really aren't all that bad for you?