Orange Juice vs actual Oranges - the nutrition breakdown

High fibre OJ? 🤔

First off - what's fibre?

Fibre is the undigestable carbohydrates that feed the bugs in your gut and make up the bulk of your stools.

We get our fibre from fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds. Adults need around 25 to 30 grams of fibre each day and most of us don't get enough.

Having adequate fibre is what helps keep us regular 💩 so if you have issues with your number 2's it could be a fibre problem.

Generally, juice products have the fibre removed from them (imagine squeezing an orange, you get the watery, tasty stuff and leave the chewy fibre filled bits behind)

This product has fibre added to it so they can whack it on the label as being "a source of natural fibre". But is it??

A 250 ml glass of this OJ will give you:

🍊19.5 grams of sugar, divide that by 4 and that is nearly 5 teaspoons of sugar. Yes, it is naturally occurring sugar from the fruit, but because it's in a concentrated form, it's not that great for our health.

🍊 only 2.3 grams of fibre - which is added to the product

🍊 100 grams of vitamin c (added to the product because the nutrition is lost during processing)

Compare that weight for weight with oranges (generally speaking 1 litre of liquid = 1 kg of weight)

🍊 you would need to eat 2 and a half oranges

🍊 6 grams of naturally occurring fibre

🍊133g of vitamin c (naturally occurring!)

🍊 more energy and sugars BUT you would be full after eating 2.5 oranges and most of us don't eat that much fruit in one sitting. Where as you would still be hungry after the OJ and eat extra food.

Moral of the story?

🍊 choose the fruit, not the juice for optimal nutrition

🍊 don't get sucked into the marketing

🍊 drinking calories is great for those that need to gain weight because we don't get the same "stop eating I'm full" signals when we drink our food. Aim to chew your food for increased satiety.

🍊keep juice and similar products as sometimes foods and enjoy them occasionally.