Stop your juice diet. Immediately

TL;DR you're basically just drinking sugar and vitamins.

Smoothies are delicious, it's a point we can all agree on. But are they all you need in a healthy diet? No.

A study published on Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, called into question how beneficial juice diets were for a healthy heart.

Juicing was cited as an example of a fad diet. In fact, when you make a smoothie you remove the healthy fibre and reduce the fruit to sugar and vitamins.

In addition if you drink fruit juice instead of water with food, you're piling on calorific intake in liquid form.

Eating whole fruits and vegetables should be a priority - only resort to fruit juice if you're not getting enough vitamins found in fruit and vegetables.

Andrew Freeman, MD, FACC and a member of the Council, said:

There is a great amount of misinformation about nutrition fads, including antioxidant pills, juicing and gluten-free diets. 

However, there are a number of dietary patterns that have clearly been demonstrated to reduce the risk of many chronic diseases, including coronary heart disease.

Freeman said confusion can arise because many studies are funded by the food industry and can have bias.

In addition, it’s very hard to separate the effects of specific nutrients in a food. For example, an apple contains many components including proteins, vitamins and fibre.

And some nutrition studies tend to be based on surveys that rely on people’s memories of what they ate, which isn’t always reliable.

This is not to say you should never drink juice, but rather do so in moderation and not in substitution of a meal. The study recommends that if you want to juice, avoid adding honey to minimise calories.

HT Popular Science

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