Fruit Juice versus the Whole Fruit

One of the easiest ways to pick up empty calories is in fruit juices. These juices such as orange juice do contain vitamins such as vitamin C, but they are also packed with a ton calories are from sugars…empty, useless calories. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t drink fruit juices, they are defiantly better than a can of coke or any other sugary, high-fructose-corn-syrupy beverage. Juices do have a place in our diet, but you should use them sparingly in you are trying to cut the calories.

Here are a few facts to think about:
It takes about three to four standard oranges to make one 8-ounce glass of orange juice. Wow, that must mean you are getting three to four servings of fruit, Right? Wrong. The fact is that you lose a lot of the vital nutrients when juicing a fruit and end up just consuming more of its empty calories. Here are some of the benefits of eating the whole fruit.

• Carbohydrates: In one glass of orange juice you get 26 grams of carbohydrates. Most of these calories are from sugars which are empty, useless calories. While eating one orange will provide only 11 to 20 grams of carbs with a lot of the calories coming from fiber, which are more filling and also provide more nutritious health benefits such as lowering blood cholesterol and glucose levels.


• Fiber: Most orange juices don’t even contain less than 1 gram of fiber in an 8-ounce glass, but one whole orange will get you 2 to 4 grams of fiber.


• Calories: Consuming one glass of orange juice will add around 110 calories to your diet, while if you ate the whole orange you would only be getting 45 to 85 calories.

So to help cut some calories, drink some water and eat an orange, a grapefruit, a cup of berries, or banana instead of drinking that glass of juice in the morning. If you are worried about getting in your vitamin C add a multivitamin to your diet.