With so much publicity about high fructose corn syrup, I was curious about the facts. If baby J can get all his servings of fruits and vegetables from juice, why not? Especially considering that fresh fruits and veggies contain fructose naturally (we can't eat too many of those, right?).
So I asked the doctor. The explanation was surprisingly simple. Here are the facts.
Fruits and vegetables contain fructose. True. They contain the same amount that you'd get by consuming a serving of them in any other form. The difference is that in their whole form, they are high in fiber. This is important because fructose is digested differently than other things. It is digested in the colon. For proper digestion, the fiber must push the fructose past the stomach and into the colon. Without the huge amounts of fiber, it isn't digested properly.
And undigested sugar and fructose becomes....
.... fat!
This is how a lack of fiber contributes greatly to obesity. And childhood obesity isn't a joke. Juice is a fun treat, as are other things containing fructose, but are never a healthy replacement for their substitutes.
This is yet another reason why we need to be grateful for the natural supplements our Grand Creator gave us. Enjoy an apple today. (BTW- studies indicate that eating a whole 200 calorie apple 20 minutes prior to a meal will cut the number of calories significantly during that meal).
Read more about the research being done at Princeton University.
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