TO JUICE OR NOT TO JUICE?

"Here comes the sun do, do, do," for those of us who remember the song by George Harrison it epitomizes that feeling spring puts in the air and the boost our mojo gets as we shed the winter woollies and get ready to hit the beach.

But low and behold it has been a LOOOOONG cold winter and eeek we standing in front of the mirror going holy heck I don't know that person in the mirror but man you just have to go.

In our impatience to regain our beach buff we take drastic measures to lose the life saving winter hibernation blubber we have gained over the colder months. Choosing to stay active through winter will help you avoid this. But a popular choice people make in seeking good health and weight loss is the juice/smoothie bar and it's promise of healthy weight loss products with health giving ingredients.

I'll say it out loud for all to hear "I DON'T LIKE JUICE/SMOOTHIE BARS!"

Want know why?

First, a juice has gone through a process where all the lovely fibre of the food and the all important skin which contains a lot of nutrients has been removed leaving you liquid. "Oh Der" I hear you say, but listen without fibre your tummy doesn't work properly. Remove the fibre from your food and what you'll get is a runny or farty bum or both eew! The villi in your guts loves fibre so don't take it out. If you are juicing at home save the pulp freeze it and add it to your stews and casseroles for thickening instead of flour. Get a juice made with whole fruit and veg ask them to put some of the pulp back into it if you can! Smoothies tend to be made with whole fruits and are perceived as better but they are not as they are usually loaded with some form of sugar ice cream or sweet yogurts.

Second, the average juice is made with six or more piece's of fruit - seriously would you eat six or more pieces of fruit in one go? The recommendation for daily fruit consumption is 1 large, 2 medium size or 1 cup of diced fruit. I'd be quite happy for you to have 3 small pieces of fruit in a day but no more. Over consumption will lead to weight gain sugar is sugar no matter what form it takes, so something that seems healthy becomes NOT so healthy!

Thirdly, most juice bars sell in three sizes small/kids, medium and large the small is generally 350ml, 100 ml more than a standard cup size. A medium is around the 450 ml mark and the large is a whopping 600 ml's or more. Now here's the catch on average the price for the large serve is usually a $1.00 less than the cost of a medium serve. The large is more economical so you are drawn to buy the large because it's cheaper than medium, you get more, right? True. But look at your cal's/kj most juice bars have menu boards that do list the cal's/kj's so look at the energy of the serve. Dependent on your choice of flavour a large serve will give you up to and over 2000 kj's in the serve. Ladies and Gentlemen that's your daily energy requirement in one drink!

If you know you won't eat anything else for the day then knock yourself out have a large juice/smoothie but if you know that you will be eating then just get a small serve. I would like to see the promotion of the small size serve at these bar's but I won't hold my breath, until policy's change or companies promoting health get a conscious it's up to you to do the best for you.

My choice, just don't have a juice/smoothie but if you are going to have one be aware of the cal/kj per serve, buy a medium get two kids size cups and share with a friend... DOWNSIZE for better health! I also don't recommend juices or smoothies for children the serve sizes are simply just to big.

UPDATED 14/6/17

#juices #healthy #servesize #nutritioninformation