Why I won't promote juices.

As far common perception goes juicing is one of the indicators that someone is healthy. If you go out with friends and order a juice or walk past someone sipping on a bottle filled with green liquid they must be the epitome of health.

However, as a nutritionist I do not drink and don't recommend drinking these juices. Let me tell you why.

If you have ever made a juice form scratch before you will know that juicing one apple will only give you an extremely small amount of liquid, and if you wanted to make a glass of fresh apple juice you need a whole bag of apples. This is because when juicing the food is broken down and the more watery parts of the fruits and vegetables and passed through one end while the stem and and tough skins are passed through another that gets thrown in the bin.

So lets go back and remember – one glass of fresh apple juice will require a bag of apples. In a normal meal if you had 3 or even 5 apples that would be pretty filling. This is because your body is going through the process of being aware of consumption and chewing, digesting and eating all of the food (not missing out on the bits that get thrown out.)

The same goes if you order a pineapple and mango juice. They will probably have to use a whole pineapple and a few mangoes in order to get that juice. Now imagine eating that in a meal, I'm sure the one pineapple would be enough to fill you up without even thinking about the mangoes.

(PLUS that's assuming that they use 100% fruit and do not add any fruit juices which have added sugar, and concentrate.)

So while juices sound like a good idea, they are often a fast track to unknowingly consuming a lot more calories than you would otherwise.

NOT TO SCARE YOU WITH NUMBERS, but:

1 medium apple = 22g of carbs & 88 calories.

So having one or two apples as a snack really is not that high in calories.

However, imagine if you need 8 apples to get enough for a juice

8x22=176g of carbohydrates (that's almost what you should be having in a whole day!)

=704 calories just for a fresh apple juice.

Now let me stress that in NO MEANS am I saying that fruit juice is bad, however I am saying that you should be highly aware of the excess calories this will cause you to consume.

When these will contain less calories is when they have vegetables in there as well, as veggies generally contain less calories than fruit.

So do I never have a juice again?

I am not saying never have them again! If they are something you enjoy then cutting them out will only make you crave them. However what I am suggesting is limiting intake, maybe adding more veggies to the mix and less fruit (as recommended to eat 5 serves of veggies and 2 serves of fruit per day.) Also if you want to order one at a cafe, ask your friend if they would like to share, and split the juice between the two of you. This makes for a much more reasonable serving size.

So what about smoothies?

Smoothies I have a very different opinion on, and before you think I just have something against juicing, hear me out.

With smoothies you can add more substance and give yourself more options than just carbs.

For examples you could have 200g of berries, half a cup of non fat greek yogurt, a cup of skim milk, spinach, chia seeds and half a scoop of protein powder.

Now this is more of a meal. Instead of just having a food high in sugar and carbohydrates you have protein, calcium, healthy fats, as well as fresh fruit.

Now in comparison to the juice this has only 7g of fat, 22g of carbs, 36g of protein and an amazing 11g of fiber.

With only 295 calories.

So you can see why I'm team smoothie? Less calories, but more bang for your buck. Packed with goodness, micronutrients and almost half your daily fibre intake all for less than 300 calories.

Of course you can use a banana instead of berries or almond milk instead of skim but this is just an example to show you the difference in nutritional value.

When making this yourself you will be able to make it healthier than when ordering at a restaurant but don't be afraid to ask for substitutes. If the menu says 'milk and yogurt' chances are both of these are full fat. When ordering just ask 'would I be able to have this smoothie with skim milk and greek yogurt?' Sure it might make the waiter sigh with another meal change request but remember that is their job and almost every restaurant will have these two ingredients available, and be more than capable of making this change for you.

It's little changes like this here and there that ultimately will make a difference to your overall health goals.

So just remember juices are okay in moderation just try to steer clear of all fruit juices and if you want something with a bit more heart, give a smoothie a go!