Mrs. G. came to our offices for her first visit distraught. Her primary-care doctor had just diagnosed her with diabetes, and she was here for advice. She was shocked by the diagnosis. She had always been overweight and had relatives with diabetes, but she believed she lived a healthy lifestyle. One of the habits that she identified as healthy was drinking freshly squeezed juice, which she saw as a virtuous food, every day.
We asked her to stop drinking juice entirely. She left the office somewhat unconvinced, but after three months of cutting out the juice and making some changes to her diet, her diabetes was under control without the need for insulin.
Mrs. G. is not an uncommon patient. As diabetes specialists, we see patients like her all the time, who for one reason or another believe that juice is a health food. The truth is that fruit juice, even if it is freshly pressed, 100 percent juice, is little more than sugar water.
Yet many Americans believe that juice is good for them. In one survey of parents of young children, 1 in 3 believed that juice was at least as healthy as fruit. We are inundated with the message that juice is healthy. Juice bars abound in gyms, spas and health food stores,
while government programs supply large quantities of juice to low-income children and pregnant mothers. The commercial juice industry is happy to take advantage of this idea, as with POM Wonderful’s tagline “Drink to your health” or Juicy Juice’s labels extolling the,
(mostly added) 120 percent of recommended daily vitamin C in the products. While the Internet is busy laughing at the Juicero juicing system — in which, it turns out,
your hands work as well as the $400 WiFi-enabled machine — what people should really be talking about is a much simpler fact: The product takes healthy fruits and vegetables and makes them much less healthy.
