5 REASONS TO STOP DRINKING JUICE

5 REASONS TO STOP DRINKING JUICE

By mindbodygreen.com - Dr Steven Lin

Fruit juice gained popularity as a "healthy" alternative to flavoured drinks such as soda due to its reputation for containing a high concentration of vitamins and antioxidants. However, after taking a closer look at the way fruit is metabolized in the body and in the digestive system, fruit juices could be doing more harm than good to our health. Here's why:

1. We process fruit differently than animals do.

Animals designed to eat high-fruit diets, such as birds and orangutans, have specialized digestive systems that allow the slow digestion of fruits. This allows the simple sugars found in fruit to be fermented into more complex carbohydrates in their bodies. So despite eating a diet high in fruit, animals such as orangutans metabolize very little of the simple sugars.

In contrast, our digestive system has a relatively shorter colon. This means that our gut bacteria aren’t evolved for the slower digestive processes required for a diet high in fruit. Our digestive system is designed for smaller-quantity, higher-nutrient-density foods, such as cooked foods and animal products. When we eat fruit, our digestive system sweeps the simple sugars into our blood stream.

2. Juicing strips the sugars from fruit out of their natural casing.

In nature, sugar is locked up tight by the structure and biology of the plant world. Simple carbohydrates are encased by complex carbohydrate cellulose walls. When we flood our system with simple sugars, it causes an imbalance in our gut bacteria to favor faster metabolizing microbes. The result is that juice will cause an imbalance in our gut microbes. This is known to be related to digestive conditions like irritable bowel disease and intestinal permeability, which is now being linked to immune system dysfunction.

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