Fruit juices, fruit juices or whole fruit?

Introduction

In feeding, the fruit represents a combination of plant foods, sweet and rich in: water, mineral salts, vitamins; however, the correct definition of " fruit " is:

" the result of the fertilization of the ovary of the plant having the function of conferring protection, nourishment and means of diffusion to the seed or seeds contained therein"

which reveals a much broader vision of the popular concept of fruit.

Respecting the aforementioned "botanical" definition, the simple ones are to be considered fruits (dry, such as legumes and chestnut, or fleshy, such as grapes, olives, pumpkin, walnut, pomegranate, cocoa, walnut moscata, cucumber, banana, tomato etc.), aggregated ones (polidrupa, such as blackberry, conocarp like strawberry) and fruitless ones (sorose, like pineapple, and siconio, like fig).

The reader is not impressed by the semantic difficulty and the etymological specificity of the introduction; below we will treat ONLY the ordinary fruit, that is the fleshy one, from which it is also possible to extract a juice or the industrial juice ... on the other hand, it is hoped that NO ONE will try to squeeze chestnuts or beans to extract the juice!

Juice

Fruit juices are the result of the "mechanical pressing" of the whole fruit, but not all; specifically, we mean the liquid extraction of the endocarp of the Esperidi, the citrus fruit. They can be effectively pressed: orange, lemon, grapefruit, lime, bergamot, clementine, mandarin, mandarancio, chinotto, cedar, etc. Juices contain very high quantities of water, sugars, mineral salts and vitamins; furthermore, if the fleshy portion of the endocarp is preserved in the juice, it will contain a greater quantity of soluble fiber, unsaturated and essential lipids and some low biological value protein.

Orange Juice ... To Eat

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Fruit juices

Fruit juices are non-carbonated soft drinks packaged in small bottles, widely produced and distributed by the food industry; it is also possible to produce fruit juices at home, but based on consumption estimates, in the Italian diet they play an almost marginal role.

In general, fruit juices are prepared with ingredients such as: drinking water or natural mineral water, fruit juice or fruit extracts, natural essences, sucrose, citric acid and / or tartaric acid.

Fruit juices have a dry residue equal to or greater than 10% and the relative content of natural juice cannot fall below 12%; these are drinks with a fairly high energy power, but the nutritional composition DEPENDS essentially on the TYPE of fruit juice. They are different fruit juices from those obtained from different whole fruits and: with pulp or without pulp, with or without added sugar (natural), with or without vitamins (ACE) and added mineral salts etc.

Juices or whole fruit?

Is whole fruit better than juices and fruit juices?

Obviously yes! Any raw food is advisable with respect to its refined, processed or preserved form.

Fresh fruit, whole and NOT peeled (if edible and without traces of pesticide treatments), is a very important nutritional source for human nutrition. It provides very high quantities of water and mineral salts (Alkalinian potassium-K and magnesium-Mg) responsible for improving dietary PRAL; moreover, the whole fruit represents one of the 4 primary sources of dietary fiber, useful or even essential quota for the regulation of intestinal transit (based on subjectivity). Fresh fruit contains many vitamins, especially β-carotene (group A) and ascorbic acid (vit. C); there are also more or less consistent traces of vitamins E, K and group B.

From an energy point of view, there is something for everyone with whole fruit! This means that, based on the derived plant, the whole fruit can be low in calories or very high in calories, predominantly with carbohydrates or lipids, thus adapting to specific needs. Most of the whole pulpy fruit consumed in Italy is predominantly sugary, with energy supplies ranging from 30kcal / 100g of watermelon to 69kcal / 100g of grapes (we exclude from the list 11kcal / 100g lemons, which are rarely consumed by suns like fruit). The TYPICAL carbohydrate of the whole pulpy fruit is fructose, a low glycemic index monosaccharide highly recommended (rather than glucose or maltodextrin) in the modulation of the insulin response for diabetics; with this statement we do NOT intend to replace ALL glucose-based foods (or its polymers) with fruit, but that it (despite being sugary) represents an energy source characterized by a better metabolic impact than many other processed foods and refined.

In the Italian market there are also imported fruits, more or less consumed and known; they range from the well-known banana (66kcal / 100g), the avocado (essentially lipid-saturated, with 231 kcal / 100g) or coconut (also fundamentally lipidic but with medium chain fatty acids, with 351kcal / 100g), etc.

The whole fruit is a group of foods that lends itself very much to supporting athletic performance, as it is easy to transport (for example for cyclists or marathon runners) and is easily digested; moreover, it allows: effective rehydration, the reintegration of mineral salts and the fructose energy supplement.

NB . Obviously, even whole fruit, if introduced in excess (> 600-800gg / day for a sedentary person), can be responsible for the increase in body weight.

Disadvantages of juices and juices

What are the disadvantages of replacing juices or whole fruit juices?

Let's start by pointing out that the juices are absolutely genuine derivatives of the whole fruit; the only difference that separates them from the initial product is the amount of fiber and a few other solid components (proteins and some lipids); therefore I would NOT define them as INAPPROPRIATE, but secondary to the choice of whole fruit.

In the following, we MAY well tolerate natural fruit juices or those without added sugar (the antioxidant integrated ones are also welcome); unlike juices, they are ALWAYS subjected to industrial packaging processing and increased preservability (heat treatment and addition of preservatives), as well as to the correction of acidity, aroma and taste. These are not particularly obsolete drinks, although it would be a good idea to limit them to one-time consumption and therefore they CANNOT be defined as whole fruit substitutes.

We conclude by talking about the fruit juices added to sugar, or the most common ones; although they often contain a good portion of pulp, they are extremely high in calories (even more so than cola or similar drinks) and do not preserve (if not added) vitamin contents worthy of note.

Sweetened fruit juices CANNOT replace the consumption of whole fresh fruit as they are: more caloric, less nutritious, less satiating and with a higher glycemic-insulin index.