Choosing a healthy variant will take a toll on you. And deciding which one is healthier again will give you an ache. By Jigyasu Joshi
Preparing fresh juices is a bit of a mission. We have to select the right fruits or vegetables. Then set up the juicer, put ingredients through its whirring blades and again clean them laboriously. All this effort for a glass of nutrients. It’s no wonder that many of us, instead of doing all this, go for a much simpler route of drinking bottled “fresh” juice. But are the bottled juices we have been drinking all this while really healthyIJ Are they as good as we are made to believeIJ
“Bottled juices are not a healthier option at all”, says clinical nutritionist loveneet Batra. “The amount of sugar in those juices makes them sweet candies”, she adds.
For all their reliance on phases such as “100 per cent pure” and “pure squeezed”, many commercial juice manufacturers make a processed product. One of the easiest ways for extracting juice is by using the centrifugal juice extractors. Now these use metal blades to break down the fruit or vegetable to extract juice. However, the heat generated by the metal blades destroys the delicate enzymes and brings down the nutrition value of the juice. “Whole fruits are always a better option. We get three grams of fibre if we consume 100 grams of orange. We get negligible traces of fibre if we consume 100 ml of bottled juice. Even the cold pressed juices have chances of contamination”, says Dr Sunita Roy Chowdhury, chief dietician at BlK Super Specialty Hospital.
Another industrial method of extracting juice is through the masticator. This uses a slow rotating gear to break the fruit or vegetable and then extract the juice. Though this method is able to retain more nutrients compared to the centrifugal process due to less heat, it leads to oxidisation of the juices limiting their nutrients. Also, producers of pasteurised juices store them in vast tanks. In order to maintain its “freshness”, the juice is stripped of oxygen. Once this process is over, the product can be stored without any harm for more than a year.
“People should give more importance to squeezing juices at home. Or for want of time, one can always go for lemonade, buttermilk and lassis, which are anytime better than bottled juices,” says Megha Jaina, Delhi-based nutritionist and diet consultant.