More about Juice

Yesterday I talked about our changes involving drinks.  Today I want to tell you a bit more about our juice changes.  For us it wasn't just about eliminating sugar, or watching our weight or even choosing organic when possible, but I also wanted to know that the juice I was giving my children really contained all the goodness of the fruits.

Since I do not own a juice extractor I do not make too many of my own juices.  I do have a high powered blender, and I can make sort of juices in that, but the nice smooth truly liquid quality of juice I just can not do.  So when I buy juice I read labels carefully,  I look for juices that are refrigerated, pasteurized as little as possible, and that are pure fruit juice with no added ingredients, I also prefer organic juices, but often those are only shelved juice. 

Sometimes I do need to buy shelf juice, and in that case I always choose organic juices, and again look for juice that has no added ingredients, and has been messed with as little as possible.  This means that for apple juice I purchase unfiltered apple juice which is cloudy, but delicious.

Would I love to own a juice extractor?  YES! I would, but right now that is not in the family budget and so I will need to be satisfied with purchasing juice from the grocery store.

Why all this talk about unfiltered, organic, unpasteurized (or lightly pasteurized), and no added ingredients?  Well the no added ingredients is a no-brainer I only want the fruit juice no sugar, or corn syrup, or any other substance that doesn't occur naturally IN the fruit.  Organic is another no-brainer, I don't want chemical fertilizers, or pesticides leeching into my juice and I certainly do not want any Genetically Modified (GMO) fruits in my juice.  Now the others are a little more tricky, I mean sure pasteurizing my juice won't hurt me, but it will destroy some of the nutrients in my juice and it will affect the taste of my juice and certainly by destroying nutrients the juice will no longer have the full nutrition of the fruit it was juiced from.  Unfiltered? Same thing, it won't hurt me, but it won't help either.  When you filter juice you are removing the bits of fruit that remain in the juice, which means that you have taken away nutrients and fiber, again if I'm going to consider my juice a food shouldn't it be complete? 

Birbitt thinks real juice is so much tastier than processed juice, and a juice extractor is for sure on my wish list!