Which Is Healthier: Juice or Soda?

Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

Dr. Eric Berg

Health & Fitness

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2024

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this podcast, I’m going to compare juice and soda to determine which one is healthier. People often think juice is healthier because it’s “natural” and comes from fruit. A 12-ounce soda has 39 grams of sugar, while the same amount of fruit juice contains around 42 grams!

Juice is a highly refined product. The fruit is juiced, and the fiber and oils are removed. Chemicals like ethyl butyrate are used to enhance the flavor.

Most juice in the grocery store is pasteurized, sterilizing it and killing the beneficial microbes. Vitamins and antioxidants, especially vitamin C, are also sensitive to heat from the pasteurization process.

If your juice is not organic, you’re consuming pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides.

When you consume sugar from juice without the vitamins and minerals found in fruit, your body has to pull from its nutrient reserves to use the sugar as fuel. Both soda and juice deplete your vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant reserves over time and spike your blood sugar.

Most apple juice is made into concentrate and stored for an extended period, then shipped around the world to be reconstituted and sold as juice.

When it comes to soda vs. fruit juice, both are unhealthy options. If you’re craving juice, consume the whole fruit!

Try blending fruit into a smoothie instead of drinking juice. This provides a beverage with live enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants—and no pasteurization. Zevia is a great sugar-free soda alternative. Water with electrolytes is another refreshing option!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Soda or juice?
0:02.5	Which one do you think is healthier?
0:04.8	Please comment down below.
0:05.9	Today we're going to do a little bit of a deep dive into comparing both of these.
0:09.0	And I think the perception that people have is that juice is definitely healthier, it's more natural, it comes from fruit, etc.
0:17.6	If we look at the difference in sugar amounts and a 12 ounce, soda has about 39 grams of sugar.
0:24.3	While fruit juice on average has about 42 grams,
0:28.8	fruit juice has actually more sugar.
0:30.7	Now, the type of sugar is different. In the US most of the soda uses
0:36.8	high fructose corn syrup. However, some products are starting to use cane
0:40.6	sugar, which I think is a huge step up. Some others are using just
0:44.9	sugar with beech sugar and they don't really label it as be sugar. It's just
0:48.1	gonna say sugar and beat sugar is a gMO product. Just realize if it says
0:52.1	sugar it's gonna be beech sugar if if it says sugar it's going to be
0:53.1	be be be sugar if it says cane sugar it's going to be cane sugar but like in Mexico
0:56.6	they don't use high fructose corn syrup apparently they use cane sugar and that's
1:01.1	interesting because it's definitely going to be a lot better.
1:03.4	So they also add caramel coloring, caffeine, phosphoric acid, carbonated water, and
1:10.0	flavoring. So basically you're drinking liquid candy. Now let's look at this juice a little bit closer.
1:15.2	We have a product that has been highly refined. It goes through a lot of processing. They have to
1:21.1	juice it, they have to take things out of it, they take the fiber out of it,
1:25.1	they take the oils out of it, they add enzymes to extract certain things, they add chemicals like
	...

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