Can you drink your fruit and vegetables? How does juice compare to the whole food?

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Do you struggle to eat your fruits and vegetables? You are not alone. Less than 5% of Australians eat the recommended serves of fresh produce each day (with 44% eating enough fruit but only 6% eating the recommended vegetables).

Adults should aim to eat at least five serves of vegetables (or roughly 375 grams) and two serves of fruit (about 300 grams) each day. Fruits and vegetables help keep us healthy because they have lots of nutrients (vitamins, minerals and fibre) and health-promoting bioactive compounds (substances not technically essential but which have health benefits) without having many calories.

So, if you are having trouble eating the rainbow, you might be wondering – is it OK to drink your fruits and vegetables instead in a juice or smoothie? Like everything in nutrition, the answer is all about context.

Darina Belonogova/Pexels

It might help overcome barriers

Common reasons for not eating enough fruits and vegetables are preferences, habits, perishability, cost, availability, time and poor cooking skills. Drinking your fruits and vegetables in juices or smoothies can help overcome some of these barriers.

Juicing or blending can help disguise tastes you don’t like, like bitterness in vegetables. And it can blitz imperfections such as bruises or soft spots. Preparation doesn’t take much skill or time, particularly if you just have to pour store-bought juice from the bottle. Treating for food safety and shipping time does change the make up of juices slightly, but unsweetened juices still remain significant sources of nutrients and beneficial bioactives.

Juicing can extend shelf life and reduce the cost of nutrients. In fact, when researchers looked at the density of nutrients relative to the costs of common foods, fruit juice was the top performer.

So, drinking my fruits and veggies counts as a serve, right?

How juice is positioned in healthy eating recommendations is a bit confusing. The Australian Dietary Guidelines include 100% fruit juice with fruit but vegetable juice isn’t mentioned. This is likely because vegetable juices weren’t as common in 2013 when the guidelines were last revised.

The guidelines also warn against having juice too often or in too high amounts. This appears to be based on the logic that juice is similar, but not quite as good as, whole fruit. Juice has lower levels of fibre compared to fruits, with fibre important for gut health, heart health and promoting feelings of fullness. Juice and smoothies also release the sugar from the fruit’s other structures, making them “free”. The World Health Organization recommends we limit free sugars for good health.

But fruit and vegetables are more than just the sum of their parts. When we take a “reductionist” approach to nutrition, foods and drinks are judged based on assumptions made about limited features such as sugar content or specific vitamins.

But these features might not have the impact we logically assume because of the complexity of foods and people. When humans eat varied and complex diets, we don’t necessarily need to be concerned that some foods are lower in fibre than others. Juice can retain the nutrients and bioactive compounds of fruit and vegetables and even add more because parts of the fruit we don’t normally eat, like the skin, can be included.

blender and glass of orange juice
Juicing or blending might mean you eat different parts of the fruit or vegetable. flyingv3/Shutterstock

So, it is healthy then?

A recent umbrella review of meta-analyses (a type of research that combines data from multiple studies of multiple outcomes into one paper looked at the relationship between 100% juice and a range of health outcomes.

Most of the evidence showed juice had a neutral impact on health (meaning no impact) or a positive one. Pure 100% juice was linked to improved heart health and inflammatory markers and wasn’t clearly linked to weight gain, multiple cancer types or metabolic markers (such as blood sugar levels).

Some health risks linked to drinking juice were reported: death from heart disease, prostate cancer and diabetes risk. But the risks were all reported in observational studies, where researchers look at data from groups of people collected over time. These are not controlled and do not record consumption in the moment. So other drinks people think of as 100% fruit juice (such as sugar-sweetened juices or cordials) might accidentally be counted as 100% fruit juice. These types of studies are not good at showing the direct causes of illness or death.

What about my teeth?

The common belief juice damages teeth might not stack up. Studies that show juice damages teeth often lump 100% juice in with sweetened drinks. Or they use model systems like fake mouths that don’t match how people drinks juice in real life. Some use extreme scenarios like sipping on large volumes of drink frequently over long periods of time.

Juice is acidic and does contain sugars, but it is possible proper oral hygiene, including rinsing, cleaning and using straws can mitigate these risks.

Again, reducing juice to its acid level misses the rest of the story, including the nutrients and bioactives contained in juice that are beneficial to oral health.

groups of women outside drinking orange juice in cups
Juice might be more convenient and could replace less healthy drinks. PintoArt/Shutterstock

So, what should I do?

Comparing whole fruit (a food) to juice (a drink) can be problematic. They serve different culinary purposes, so aren’t really interchangeable.

The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating recommends water as the preferred beverage but this assumes you are getting all your essential nutrients from eating.

Where juice fits in your diet depends on what you are eating and what other drinks it is replacing. Juice might replace water in the context of a “perfect” diet. Or juice might replace alcohol or sugary soft drinks and make the relative benefits look very different.

On balance

Whether you want to eat your fruits and vegetables or drink them comes down to what works for you, how it fits into the context of your diet and your life.

Smoothies and juices aren’t a silver bullet, and there is no evidence they work as a “cleanse” or detox. But, with society’s low levels of fruit and vegetable eating, having the option to access nutrients and bioactives in a cheap, easy and tasty way shouldn’t be discouraged either.

Emma Beckett, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Nutrition, Dietetics & Food Innovation – School of Health Sciences, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Inflammation: The Silent Fire – by Dr. Carly Stewart

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Despite its relative brevity (188 pages), this book is quite comprehensive, covering a lot more than “eat some fruits and vegetables please”.

    In terms of complexity, it starts at the level of “what is inflammation?” and progresses to the nuances of NF-kB inhibitors and the role of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9. And we do mean “progresses”; it doesn’t jump from one to the other.

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  • Does Music Really Benefit The Brain?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small 😎

    ❝Is it actually beneficial for the brain to listen to music, or is it just in line with any relaxing activity? And what kind of music is most beneficial❞

    The short answer, first of all, is that it is indeed beneficial.

    One reason for this without having to get very deep into it, is that a very important thing for general brain health is using it, and that means lighting up all areas of your brain.

    Now, we all lead different lives and thus different parts of our brains will get relatively more resources than others depending on what we do with them, and that’s ok.

    For example, if you were to scan this writer’s polyglot brain, you’d surely find overdevelopment in areas associated with language use and verbal memory, but if you were to scan a taxi-driver’s brain, then it’d be spatial reasoning and spatial memory that’s overpowered, and for a visual artist, it may be visual processing and creativity that’s enhanced. A musician’s brain? Fine motor skills, auditory processing, auditory memory.

    Now, for those of us who aren’t musicians, how then can we light up areas associated with music? By listening to music, of course. It won’t give us the fine motor skills of a concert violinist, but the other areas we mentioned will get a boost.

    See also: How To Engage Your Whole Brain ← this covers music too, but it’s about (as the title suggests) the whole brain, so check it out and see if there are any areas you’ve been neglecting!

    There are other benefits too, though, including engaging our parasympathetic nervous system, which is good for our heart, gut, brain, and general healthespecially if we sing or hum along to the music:

    The Science Of Sounds ← this also covers the science (yes, science) of mantra meditation vs music

    As for “and what kind of music is most beneficial”, we’d hypothesize that a variety is best, just like with food!

    However, there are some considerations to bear in mind, with science to support them. For example…

    About tempo:

    ❝EEG analysis revealed significant changes in brainwave signals across different frequency bands under different tempi.

    For instance, slow tempo induced higher Theta and Alpha power in the frontal region, while fast tempo increased Beta and Gamma band power.

    Moreover, fast tempo enhanced the average connectivity strength in the frontal, temporal, and occipital regions, and increased phase synchrony value (PLV) between the frontal and parietal regions.

    Read in full: Music tempo modulates emotional states as revealed through EEG insights

    And if you’re wondering about those different brainwave bands, check out:

    Additionally, if you just want science-backed relaxation, the following 8-minute soundscape was developed by sound technicians working with a team of psychologists and neurologists.

    It’s been clinically tested, and found to have a much more relaxing effect (in objective measures of lowering heart rate and lowering cortisol levels, as well as in subjective self-reports) than merely “relaxing music”.

    Try it and see for yourself:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    For much deeper dive into the effect of music on the brain, check out this book we reviewed a while back, by an accomplished musician and neuroscientist (that’s one person, who is both things):

    This Is Your Brain on Music – by Dr. Daniel Levitin

    Enjoy!

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    A s a bit of reader feedback prompted some interesting thoughts:

    ❝You erred on the which is better section. Read this carefully :Looking at minerals, grapes have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc, while grapes have more potassium and manganese. A clear win for strawberries here.❞

    You’re quite right; thank you for pointing it out, and kindly pardon the typo, which has now been corrected!

    The reason for the mistake was because when I (writer responsible for it here, hi) was writing this, I had the information for both fruits in front of me, but the information for grapes was on the right in my field of vision, so I errantly put it on the right on the page, too, while also accidentally crediting strawberries’ minerals to grapes, since strawberries’ data was on the left in my field a vision.

    The reason for explaining this: it’s a quirky, very human way to err, in an era when a lot of web content is AI-generated with very different kinds of mistakes (usually because AI is very bad at checking sources, so will confidently state something as true despite the fact that the source was The Onion, or Clickhole, or someone’s facetiously joking answer on Quora, for example).

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    Grapes vs Strawberries – Which is Healthier?

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  • Wheat Belly, Revised & Expanded Edition – by Dr. William Davis

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    This review pertains to the 2019 edition of the book, not the 2011 original, which will not have had all of the same research.

    We are told, by scientific consensus, to enjoy plenty of whole grains as part of our diet. So, what does cardiologist Dr. William Davis have against wheat?

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  • The Other Significant Others – by Rhaina Cohen

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  • You can train your nose – and 4 other surprising facts about your sense of smell

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Would you give up your sense of smell to keep your hair? What about your phone?

    A 2022 US study compared smell to other senses (sight and hearing) and personally prized commodities (including money, a pet or hair) to see what people valued more.

    The researchers found smell was viewed as much less important than sight and hearing, and valued less than many commodities. For example, half the women surveyed said they’d choose to keep their hair over sense of smell.

    Smell often goes under the radar as one of the least valued senses. But it is one of the first sensory systems vertebrates developed and is linked to your mental health, memory and more.

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    DimaBerlin/Shutterstock

    1. Smell is linked to memory and emotion

    Why can the waft of fresh baking trigger joyful childhood memories? And why might a certain perfume jolt you back to a painful breakup?

    Smell is directly linked to both your memory and emotions. This connection was first established by American psychologist Donald Laird in 1935 (although French novelist Marcel Proust had already made it famous in his reverie about the scent of madeleines baking.)

    Odours are first captured by special olfactory nerve cells inside your nose. These cells extend upwards from the roof of your nose towards the smell-processing centre of your brain, called the olfactory bulb.

    Diagram showing odour particles travelling through the nose into the brain.
    Smells are first detected by nerve cells in the nose. Axel_Kock/Shutterstock

    From the olfactory bulb they form direct connection with the brain’s limbic system. This includes the amygdala, where emotions are generated, and the hippocampus, where memories are created.

    Other senses – such as sight and hearing – aren’t directly connected to the lymbic system.

    One 2004 study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate odours trigger a much stronger emotional and memory response in the brain than a visual cue.

    2. Your sense of smell constantly regenerates

    You can lose your ability to smell due to injury or infection – for example during and after a COVID infection. This is known as olfactory dysfunction. In most cases it’s temporary, returning to normal within a few weeks.

    This is because every few months your olfactory nerve cells die and are replaced by new cells.

    We’re not entirely sure how this occurs, but it likely involves your nose’s stem cells, the olfactory bulb and other cells in the olfactory nerves.

    Other areas of your nervous system – including your brain and spinal cord – cannot regenerate and repair after an injury.

    Constant regeneration may be a protective mechanism, as the olfactory nerves are vulnerable to damage caused by the external environment, including toxins (such as cigarette smoke), chemicals and pathogens (such as the flu virus).

    But following a COVID infection some people might continue to experience a loss of smell. Studies suggest the virus and a long-term immune response damages the cells that allow the olfactory system to regenerate.

    3. Smell is linked to mental health

    Around 5% of the global population suffer from anosmia – total loss of smell. An estimated 15-20% suffer partial loss, known as hyposmia.

    Given smell loss is often a primary and long-term symptom of COVID, these numbers are likely to be higher since the pandemic.

    Yet in Australia, the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction remains surprisingly understudied.

    Losing your sense of smell is shown to impact your personal and social relationships. For example, it can mean you miss out on shared eating experiences, or cause changes in sexual desire and behaviour.

    In older people, declining ability to smell is associated with a higher risk of depression and even death, although we still don’t know why.

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    Losing your sense of smell can have a major impact on mental health. Halfpoint/Shutterstock

    4. Loss of smell can help identify neurodegenerative diseases

    Partial or full loss of smell is often an early indicator for a range of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

    Patients frequently report losing their sense of smell years before any symptoms show in body or brain function. However many people are not aware they are losing their sense of smell.

    There are ways you can determine if you have smell loss and to what extent. You may be able to visit a formal smell testing centre or do a self-test at home, which assesses your ability to identify household items like coffee, wine or soap.

    5. You can train your nose back into smelling

    “Smell training” is emerging as a promising experimental treatment option for olfactory dysfunction. For people experiencing smell loss after COVID, it’s been show to improve the ability to detect and differentiate odours.

    Smell training (or “olfactory training”) was first tested in 2009 in a German psychology study. It involves sniffing robust odours — such as floral, citrus, aromatic or fruity scents — at least twice a day for 10—20 seconds at a time, usually over a 3—6 month period.

    Participants are asked to focus on the memory of the smell while sniffing and recall information about the odour and its intensity. This is believed to help reorganise the nerve connections in the brain, although the exact mechanism behind it is unclear.

    Some studies recommend using a single set of scents, while others recommend switching to a new set of odours after a certain amount of time. However both methods show significant improvement in smelling.

    This training has also been shown to alleviate depressive symptoms and improve cognitive decline both in older adults and those suffering from dementia.

    Just like physiotherapy after a physical injury, olfactory training is thought to act like rehabilitation for your sense of smell. It retrains the nerves in your nose and the connections it forms within the brain, allowing you to correctly detect, process and interpret odours.

    Lynn Nazareth, Research Scientist in Olfactory Biology, CSIRO

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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