It's time fruit juice loses its wholesome image, some experts sayTo many people, it's a health food. To others, it's simply soda in disguise.
That virtuous glass of juice is feeling the squeeze ...
The inconvenient truth, many experts say, is that 100% fruit juice poses the same
obesity-related health risks as Coke, Pepsi and other widely vilified beverages.
With so much focus on the outsized role that sugary drinks play in the country's collective weight gain --
and the accompanying rise in conditions including diabetes, heart disease and cancer --
it's time juice lost its wholesome image, these experts say.
"It's pretty much the same as sugar water," said Dr. Charles Billington, an appetite researcher at the
University of Minnesota.
In the modern diet, "there's no need for any juice at all."
A glass of juice concentrates all the sugar from several pieces of fruit. Ounce per ounce, it contains more
calories than soda, though it tends to be consumed in smaller servings.
A cup of orange juice has 112 calories, apple juice has 114, and grape juice packs 152 -
The same amount of Coke has 97 calories, and Pepsi has 100.
OJ for the massesJuice is a relatively recent addition to the human diet.
For thousands of years, people ate fruit and drank mostly water.
But in the early 1900s, citrus growers in Florida were harvesting more oranges than they could sell.
Then they had an epiphany: promote juice.
The U.S. Army was instrumental in turning orange juice into a commercial product. It originally served a powdered lemonade to ensure soldiers got enough vitamin C, but it tasted "like battery acid"
So, during World War II, the Army commissioned scientists to invent a system for freezing OJ in a concentrated form.
The patent wound up with Minute Maid, which sold cans of frozen juice concentrate in grocery stores.
Doctors and health officials have been persuaded to de-emphasize juice in recent years.
"Having apple juice and eating an apple are not the same," he said.
Indeed, as scientists zero in on the causes of rising obesity rates, sugary drinks have emerged as a primary culprit.
Link to full story with more information