Friday, March 4, 2016

Juicing - the new fad.


Juicing is bad for you and the earth, says one article.

So naturally, being the internet, and because the juice lobby is pretty significant, there is a moderating article, to put the claims (or critiques) into perspective.

But questioning the value of juicing is not new. Here is a Q&A on juicing from June 2015. One answer on the use of juices as a meal replacement:
One of the biggest misconceptions about juicing is that juices can replace a large quantity of your meals in a healthy manner. It almost goes without saying that a refreshing drink beaming with antioxidants is healthy – but juices as meal replacements is another thing entirely. Fruit and vegetable juice just does not provide adequate fibre, protein or fats in the long term.
But all is not lost! If you really want to keep on juicing.



This article points out the two main problems or traps with juicing, and the solutions.
The main problem is that people include far too much fruit in their juices... As you juice fruit, you’ve stripped away the fiber and concentrated the sugars from many, many servings of fruit into a single serving of juice...Your blood fructose levels can spike quite intensely and quickly
So the obvious solution is... don't include too much fruits in your juices. More veggies. Some nuts or seeds for protein and fat.

But back to the first article. A quote:
Juicing is not just another fad though: it is a privileged, wasteful form of food consumption that’s worse for you than cooking and bad for the environment; juicing is the triumph of marketing over science.When juiced, a basket of fruit would probably serve half—if not less—the amount of people as it would if eaten whole. Lost to juicing are fibers that satiate...

In other words, if you can afford to juice your fruit and veggies, you are privileged.


If you are having juices once in a while, as a treat, or just casually, carry on.

If you have a juicer at home that costs more than the monthly salary of a foreign worker, and you have replaced all your meals with juices, you may want to assess your diet plan.



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