It’s hard to find truly healthy alternatives to junk food out there. There’s a lot of misconceptions about what is actually healthy and what is not. We sought out for the truth on this topic and came a cross an article on Health.com asked,
Which of the following contains more calories?
A. Apple Juice
B. Coca-Cola.
It’s obvious that the apple juice is the healthier option right? Don’t be so sure of yourself…
It turns out eight ounces of apple juice contains 117 calories and 29 grams of carbohydrates. Eight ounces of Coca-Cola contains 97 calories and 27 grams of carbs. So the apple juice is not necessarily the best option here.
Could your diet be making you sick?
Here’s more of what the article on Health.com had to say about juice vs. soda:
The authors of a new study in the July 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine are calling for more awareness of the juice-carb connection after looking at the soda and fruit-juice habits of 44,000 African-American women, a group at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Participants who drank more fruit juice and sugar-sweetened soft drinks had an increased risk for developing diabetes.
The study’s authors logically associated weight gain from all that sugar with the elevated risk of diabetes. But even when weight was factored out, women who drank lots of fruit juice still had an elevated risk—a higher risk even than the soda drinkers. Possible reason: Empty calories don’t satisfy, even while they wreak havoc with blood sugar.
“Fruit drinks typically contain as many or more calories compared with soft drinks,” the authors warned. “The public should be made aware that these drinks are not a healthy alternative to soft drinks with regard to risk of type 2 diabetes.”
The message here, of course, is not that people should switch from juice to soda. The message is that carb-consciousness is job one for diabetics and for people who risk getting it.
So before you switch out that Sprite for an orange juice, try getting a bottle of water first. Click here for the full article.
Click here for NewsOne.com’s article on the need for healthy food in Black communities
