Drink Healthy, Organic, All-Natural Juice

Your first choice for consuming your daily nutrients should be fresh, wholesome foods, including fruits and vegetables. But you also need to hydrate your body, and organic, all-natural juice can help with fulfilling the 64 fluid ounces (eight 8-ounce glasses) your body needs daily.

Traditional juice is made from produce that has been sprayed with pesticides and chemical fertilizers, while juice made with organic produce has not. Also, some juices have added sugars, additives, preservatives, and even synthetic food enhancers. To avoid all those unhealthy items, consume organic juice.

“Juice can help you get vitamins and nutrients from fruit and vegetables more easily if you don’t consume enough of those food items,” says Morgan Dickison, a registered dietitian nutritionist at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Comprehensive Weight Control Center.

For example, Evolution Fresh Organic Grapefruit (in the chart below) has 327 milligrams (mg) of potassium (6 percent of your daily requirement). It also provides 80 percent of your daily vitamin C, and 2 percent of your daily calcium and vitamin A needs.

Juice can even give you a dose of healthy greens and their nutrients. Allwello Go Green, for example, which is juice made from kale, lime, green apple, parsley, and dill, provides 962 mg of potassium, or 20 percent of your daily requirement, as well as 20 percent of your daily calcium and 30 percent of your daily iron.

Precautions

Juice is missing one of the most important parts of the plant: the fiber. “Fiber helps slow the rise in blood sugar one would normally get from a fruit or vegetable juice,” says Dickison. So it’s best to choose the whole fruit or vegetable rather than the juice, if you can.

But if you do consume juice, choosing organic ensures that you are getting the best ingredients. And the first ingredients should be fruits and vegetables. Consider Apple and Eve, for example, where the first ingredient is organic apple juice. Also, if available, get juice with pulp or puree, which contains fiber. Note that Allwello Berry Blend includes 11 grams of fiber!

“Juice may be especially helpful for people who don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables,” Dickison says. “But because of the high natural sugars, I typically advise against any juice for patients with diabetes or someone trying to lose weight.”

Make Your Own

“It’s easy to make your own juice,” Dickison suggests. “If you are going to include juice in your diet, this would be a good approach, because you could control the amount of fruit and sugar your glass of juice contains. But it’s best to stick with no more than 1 cup of fruit at a time, while you can be more flexible with the veggies.”

To get all the benefits of the fruits and vegetables, including the fiber, make a smoothie instead with an added protein such as Greek yogurt, nuts or seeds.

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