The Truth About Juice Cleanses
The trend is definitely buzzy, but is it healthy? Yes, if you do it right. Please don't spend your hard-earned cash on a juice diet until you read this. By Betsy Stephens, REDBOOK.
Celebs pony up $10 for one produce-packed juice blend--and now Starbucks is bringing juicing to the rest of us with its new Evolution Fresh stores. We got to the bottom of the liquid diet mania:
To juice or to blend? If you're new to the lingo, here's a tip: Smoothies and juices are very different animals. A smoothie serves up whole fruits and vegetables, pulverized and sucked through a straw. Juice is made by separating the liquid and most of the nutrients from the pulp, which is then tossed. Die-hard juicers say getting rid of the pulp speeds vitamin delivery to your body, but "there's no evidence to support that claim," says Melina Jampolis, M.D., an internist specializing in nutrition. Plus, pulp has cancer-fighting, weight-maintaining fiber. Her opinion: Fresh juice can be great, but a pure fruit-and-veggie smoothie (minus add-ins like fro-yo) is even better.
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Why not just eat whole fruits and vegetables? By all means, do, if you're willing to chew through eight daily servings. If that's not happening, a beverage can be a convenient shortcut. You can squeeze several servings of fruits and vegetables into one glass, says registered dietitian Wendy Dickerman, clinical nutrition manager at Mercy Suburban Hospital in East Norriton, PA.
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Is juicing a magic weight-loss bullet? In a word: no. It's a quick way to load up on disease-battling, anti-aging antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins, but it could actually cause weight gain, not loss. "Liquid calories don't register fullness like solid calories," says Jampolis, so you may consume more calories overall because your body doesn't realize how many you've sipped. (One 12-ounce glass of fresh-pressed apples, for instance, has close to 200 calories.) Have juice instead of a snack or light meal, not with it.
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What's a juice "cleanse"--and should we all really do one? Some detox plans require replacing one meal a day with juice; others allow only fresh-squeezed juices and zero chewable food. The goal is to remove toxins from the body, and help you shed pounds and gain energy, but doctors and dietitians point out that your liver and kidneys "detox" your body every day, and no studies have shown that juice helps the process along. Also, if you reduce your calories too much--to less than 1,200 a day for most women--your body can begin to burn lean muscle, which is bad for your strength and your metabolism. Think of juicing as a health supplement rather than a weight-loss tool, says Jampolis: "Stick with brightly colored fruits and vegetables that you really struggle to get into your diet, like kale and spinach, and make sure that you're still getting 25 grams of fiber a day." And remember that fruit has a higher sugar content than vegetables, so when you do hit the juice bar, go heavy on the veggie blends.
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