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SPECIAL REPORT Why real fruits and vegetables beat juices, powders, and purées BY DAVID SCHARDT mericans should eat 5 to 13 servings People who eat more fruits and servings of fruit. of fruits and vegetables every day, say vegetables have a lower risk of A What does fi ber do? It can keep heart disease, stroke, and cancers the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. you regular; may lower the risk of of the mouth, throat, and esopha- That may seem like a lot, but a serving isn’t heart disease, diabetes, and some 1-3 cancers; and seems to curb hunger. gus. How do researchers know? all that much. It’s typically a piece of fruit, They compare the diets of people For example, when people were who get those diseases with the ½ cup of cut-up veggies or fruit, or 1 cup of given either apple juice or an diets of people who don’t. raw leafy greens. apple with the same number of And scientists know that fruits Even so, food processors are trying to calories, they consumed the juice and vegetables can help prevent 11 times faster, their insulin levels convince consumers that they can get their some problems, like obesity and rose higher, and they felt less hypertension, because when servings without having to reach into the full.6 The same happened with people are told to eat more fruits vegetable or fruit bin. orange juice versus oranges. and vegetables, they lose more “Satiety is an important aspect Companies are baking dried vegetables weight and have lower blood pres- of eating fruits and vegetables sure than those who aren’t told to into crackers. They’re adding vegetable because they can fi ll you up with eat more.4,5 bits to salty side dishes. They’re mixing fewer calories,” says Seymour. In all of those studies, research- vegetable juice with fruit juice. (See “Your “That can be key to controlling ers are talking about fruits and weight.” vegetables that are “mainly in Serve,” p. 11.) It’s not just the fi ber that makes unprocessed or minimally pro- But are those foods equal to real fruits and produce fi lling. Fruits and vegeta- cessed forms,” says Eric Hentges, vegetables? bles also have low calorie density director of the U.S. Department of —that is, relatively few calories for Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition their bulk. That’s partly because Policy and Promotion in Alexan- they’re mostly water. dria, Virginia. Some studies count But apple juice and soda are also juice as fruit, but none would include Most of the fi ber in fruit is lost when largely water, and they don’t help people juice-sweetened cookies or crackers made it’s turned into juice. For example, a small lose weight. In fact, studies suggest that with dehydrated vegetables. apple contains about 3½ grams of fi ber. caloric beverages promote weight gain “The science behind the recommenda- You’d have to drink 18 cups of apple juice because their calories don’t “register” as tions to eat more fruits and vegetables to get that much. And it takes 6 cups of food in the brain’s satiety centers. is based upon consuming less-processed orange juice (with or without pulp) to It seems that water has to be incorpo- forms,” notes nutritionist Jennifer Sey- reach the 3 grams of fi ber in an orange. rated into the food to help curb appetite. mour of the Centers for Disease Control Fiber is also lost when fruits are turned In a new study that isn’t yet published, and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. into purées, which show up in juices, researchers at Penn State University That’s because something is always lost bars, and other foods that claim to deliver gave 59 normal-weight men and women when produce is processed. 125 calories’ worth of one of four foods—apple slices (1½ apples), Fiber & Bulk The Bottom Line applesauce, apple juice with added “The Dietary Guidelines Committee fi ber, or apple juice with no fi ber. ■ Don’t rely on juices or foods with added fruit or recommended whole fruits—and Fifteen minutes later, when the vegetable purées or powders for your daily serv- limited amounts of fruit juice,” says participants were served cheese Janet King, a professor of nutrition ings. tortellini with tomato sauce, those who had eaten the apple consumed at the University of California. ■ Eat your fruits and vegetables fresh or frozen if about 190 fewer calories than those Why? you can, and canned if you can’t. Raisins, prunes, who had consumed the applesauce “It was primarily to increase fi ber dried apricots, dates, and other dried fruits are intakes,” says King, who chaired or either juice. also fi ne, though they deliver a concentrated dose In another Penn State study, Olga Lyubkina/fotolia.com. the committee. (People should eat © of calories (and get stuck in your teeth). 20 to 40 grams of fi ber a day, says researchers told roughly 100 obese ■ women to lower their calorie density Photo: the Institute of Medicine.) Limit fruit juice to no more than 8 ounces a day. > > > > > NUTRITION ACTION HEALTHLETTER ■ DECEMBER 2007 9 SPECIAL REPORT by eating less fat or less fat and more “water- and peel—in other words, much or all of Jenni fer Seymour, who leads a team of rich” foods—fruits, vegetables, and soup. the fruit’s bulk and fi ber—remain in the experts that is deciding which foods After a year, those who ate more water-rich juicer. Something similar happens when can claim to contain at least one serving foods had lost more weight (17 pounds vs. companies turn fruit into concentrated of fruit. 14 pounds) and reported less hunger.4 fruit purée. “Processed foods that include fruit But when companies add “fruit” to “You take a fruit that has signifi cant from concentrated purée will probably processed foods, they’re often adding levels of fi ber and potassium and you can not make the grade,” she notes. fruit juice, which separates the water process that fruit to a point where it actu- from the rest of the fruit. The cell walls ally has little of either,” says the CDC’s Vitamins & Minerals In 2004, a scientifi c panel convened by the Institute of Medicine recommended that adults get at least 4,700 milligrams a day of Juice Plus Commission potassium from their food. That’s largely because potassium can help lower blood Is Juice Plus+ “the next best thing to fruits and vegetables,” as pressure.7 (Potassium helps explain why its promoters claim? people who ate the fruit-and-vegetable-rich The fruit-and-vegetable-powder capsules are sold by NSA of DASH diet had lower blood pressure.) Collierville, Tennessee, through a multi-level marketing network. Other studies suggest that the potas- sium in fruits and vegetables can help (People fi nd friends and relatives to sell Juice Plus+, those people prevent osteoporosis and kidney stones. fi nd friends and relatives, and everybody gets a cut of the money But getting 4,700 mg of potas sium a made by the people downstream from them.) day—nearly twice what Americans now NSA is coy when it comes to how many servings of fruits and consume—means eating some 10 servings vegetables are in a daily dose (four capsules) of Juice Plus+. of fruits and vegetables. And “servings” in foods like fruit bars and juices that are That’s not surprising, since it takes a lot of pills to replace food. For example, once mostly apple, grape, or pear won’t help dehydrated, a serving of fruit or vegetable (say, a half-cup of broccoli, carrots, or much. When produce is turned into juice apples) would fi ll some 15 capsules. (Dehydration shrinks fresh produce by roughly or purée, it loses potassium (and vitamin C, 90 percent.) which is why companies often add it back). NSA spokesperson John Blair told us that, according to company tests, “the Phytochemicals nutrient value in the [four] capsules exceeds what you’d get out of 12 ounces of Produce contains antioxidant phytochemi- fresh squeezed juice.” The company says that it adds extra vitamins C and E, cals—like polyphenols—that could help ex- beta-carotene, and folate to Juice Plus+ to “achieve uniform levels,” but it won’t plain why people who eat more fruits and say how much. (The extra C and E and folate aren’t listed on the label as added vegetables are healthier. While researchers ingredients, as required by law.) don't know which phyto chemicals are criti- Bottom line: there’s no way to know how much of the 12,500 IU of beta-carotene, cal, they do know that phytochemicals are 230 mg of vitamin C, 45 IU of vitamin E, and 420 mcg of folate in a daily dose of lost when you peel or purée fruit. “Juices generally retain less than 50 per- Juice Plus+ comes from its fruit and vegetable powders and how much is added by cent of the bioactive compounds found in NSA. (If those nutrients matter, you can buy them far more cheaply elsewhere.) the whole fruit,” notes Luke Howard, who Does anything in Juice Plus+ matter? Twelve studies have been published and studies fruit processing at the University 13 more are planned or in progress (almost all of them funded by NSA), according to of Arkansas in Fayetteville. In some stud- the company. “Most of the completed studies show that people who take Juice Plus+ ies, it’s as little as 20 percent.

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