Chances are if it's green, it's good for you.
Right.
Green juices have been a favorite of influences and detox diets alike with some time now, and we are seeing more and more pre mixed green juices at our supermarkets, let alone our farmer's markets as well. But are they really a better juice nutritionally than regular fruit juice and
should we actually spend the money to buy them? Hi, I'm Leanne Ward and I'm Sissy Burrow, and as two of Australia's leading dietitians who specialize in evidence based nutrition, we bring you the Nutrition Couch Product Review, a weekly chat on everything that you can find today in our super markets. So, Susie, green juices, where do you sit? Are you a fan?
I love a green juice, now, I'm not a juice fan of juices in general. I am quite strict, having been a pediatric obesity dietitian.
And knowing the growing evidence.
Space to show that concentrated fruit juices are closely linked with weight game particularly in children, and not so great for our teeth. You know, I've never been a big fan of juices. I've been very, very strict with my children to not have them drink juice. I feel quite strongly about it, probably as strongly as I do with soft drink, but green juice is very different. I'm a big fan of veggie juices. I myself will often have
a green juice when I'm out. I generally do pure green veggie juice, which can be a little bit bitter, but if you add lemon or lime, they're delicious. And my children, my children love beech of juice, they love green juice, so I'm a big, big fan. But of course, leanne they're quite expensive. You know, they're you know, five six seven dollars for a drink. Basically that's all vegetables, so or even if you want to make them at home, you know, by the time you buy all those ingredients
plus the mess, it's a bit of a nightmare. So there has been a few that have come through the supermarkets which have come and gone because like everything, if it's not overly sweet, it doesn't tend to sell so well. And there's a couple that I am quite big fans of. So I thought it was an opportune time to talk about green juices, knowing that people are always looking for quick additions to their diet that can promote very quickly.
So I've chosen again to products I've actually changed. This is the last minute because the two I had were pretty good, so I thought I need to sort of showcase where we can go wrong. So the first one I'm going to talk about is one called the Daily Juice Green Blend fold Eate, so they're already talking about some health benefits of it now. This is the one leader variety. It's available in both coals and will wear
it retails. This one, I think was on sale this week for four dollars eighty for a liter, so a lot more cost effective than something you're paying more than that per serve. So per serve two hundred meals, so they're breaking that up into five serves. So it's coming in it just over a dollar or just sorry, under
a dollar a serve. It's coming in very low calories, as you would expect a veggie juice and fruit juice to come in at at just over eighty calories per serve, very little protein, very little fat, as you would expect, nineteen point eight grams of carbohydrate per two hundred million and almost eighteen point six grams of sugars now we must say that these are not added sugars. These are
what is coming natural from fruit. We know that in both fruit and vegetables there's naturally occurring sugars called fructose, which operate very very differently to added sugars in food. So it's not a juice that's coming with added sugars that's naturally occurring. Very small amount of fiber. Again, is
a juice, very little amount of sodium. But what I wanted to showcase is when I take a very quick scan of the ingredient list, as I would absolutely with any vegetable juice, because that tells me exactly how much
vegetable versus how much fruit is in the juice. So I look at the ingredients of this, and fruit juice is thirty one percent apple juice, twenty percent orange juice, one percent lime, pineapple juice, passion, fruit, mango paste, preservative, vitamin see color with added folate, which basically tells me leand that even though this is being marketed as a green juice, and indeed it is a tinge of.
Green, it's a fruit juice. There's no vegetice a fruit juice.
And I think that is really misleading because I think naturally we associate green with vegetable juices, and there's no vegetables in that, So I would put that in a complete fruit juice category. I wouldn't, and I'm a bit disappointed because I'm always looking for more veggie juice options in supermarket and I am dreadfully disappointed with this product.
I wouldn't buy it. It sits in that fruit juice category.
If I really was encouraging someone to have fruit juice, I would say, get a couple of oranges and juice them yourself at home. Then you're going to take the full freshness of the vitamin C in that juice. Indeed, I'm not looking to juice for my clients to get their fole eate. I'm looking for leafy green veggies. I'm looking for good quality cereal. I'm looking for other folet rich foods like natural whole fruits, but primarily veggies. So
I'm really disappointed. To be honest, have you get in this product or used it before?
No and daily juice coat. I am shocked and disappointed just reading the ingredient list, like fruit juice is a number one ingredient, reconstituted juice is the number between ingredient, then you've got some preservatives. It is all just fruit. And if you look at the label like a it's a juice that looks green, so you would assume that when it's called a green juice, it would have some
sort of vegetables in there. This is completely misleading and the absolute definition of what we would call a health halo isn't it, Susie, Because even if you look at the label like it's Daily Juice, co is the brand, and then around it it's got pitches of fruit. So it's got an apple maybe what is a pitch a lime and a passion fruit, and then it's got these little beautiful green leaves around at Susy and to me,
I don't know what do you think they are? Maybe mint leaves or originally I thought maybe it was kale or maybe it was spinach.
But when you actually take a look at.
The ingredient list, it is all just fruit. There is not one vegetable in there. So it's very disappointing. It's very misleading.
I didn't notice that.
You're right, Yeah, you look at the label and you think it looks like, I don't know, silver bee, so it looks like a bit of kale, or it looks like there's some sort of vegetable in there, but eighteen
point six grams of sugar in that juice. And yes, people will say it's natural sugar, it's from fruit, it's got vitamins, et cetera, et cetera, But you're gonna get a lot more better from eating a whole whole piece of fruit or a whole couple of pieces of fruit than you would from getting this green juice, because basically
you're just drinking basically twenty grams of sugar. There's no real nutritional no, you know, a little bit of nutritional benefit, but this is not a healthy product and not something that we would recommend, and zero vegetables, which is very disappointing.
The only people I use juice with is sometimes, of course, working with athletes, bots dieticians will use them, or with teenagers who have really high energy demands. But again, I wouldn't be going out of my way to buy this one just because it's got fol eate, like you get folate anyway from your fresh fruits and vegetables. And if I was going to recommend someone had a juice, I'd just go for a one hundred percent orange juice anyway, I certainly wouldn't be buying one that had all this mix.
Apple is the number one ingredients probably my biggest turn off. I'll never recommend concentrated apple juice over orange because it is really really high glycemic index and very high specific sugar content. It's very sweet, which is why kids tend to like it. But if you do choose to include fruit juice in your diet, it's certainly not the juice I would ever recommend. I'd go for orange every time over apple. But yeah, so I was really a bit
sad because it's masquerading is something it's absolutely not. I agree, having that leaf on the front is highly misleading. So you know, very and I guess the other reference leanne is Vegetable juices are quite expensive to make for companies because if you think about the greens that make a good green juice, things like kale and spinach, they're quite expensive product, whereas apples and things are a dimerd does and a lot cheaper to produce. So that's the other
reason food companies won't always automatically go to veggies. One, it's hard to get it tasting sweet, enough to sell at a mass level, but it's just more expensive to produce, so that can be a real barrier too. But yeah, so that's a good example of something to stay well clear of. And we get a big thumbs down from the Nutrition Couch. But I've got good news because there's
actually a couple of quite good ones. And I will mention the other good green one that I like because I know it's nice to go and have options, even though we tend to just review to here. So the one I've chosen today is one of my favorites. Actually, it's the cold Pressed Impressed range of juice.
It's Impressed Easy Greens Juice. Again. It's available at both Coals and Woolworths.
This again is a one liter bottle and it was selling four five dollars fifty. If I have a look at the nutritionals per two to fifty mils, not dissimilar, just over eighty calories per served, just over a gram of protein, similar amount of sugars, nineteen point three grams of carbohydrate, seventeen grams of sugars. Butt Ley and straight away. When we look at the ingredient list, it's a very
different story. It's thirty four percent cucumber. It still has quite a high apple content thirty two pineapple eighteen Granny Smith apple eight five percent celery, three percent koor, one percent spinach. So yes, it still does have some fruit through it, which they do, as I said, commercially to make it sweeter, because a pure veggie juice won't sell. Now you can buy a pure green veggie juice at
Top Juice, for example, and it's a distinct flavor. So I can see what they're doing here by using the apple. As I said, it won't sell if they don't put some in. Yes, it would be ideal to have a higher proportion, but this is coming in how much percent veggie overall?
About forty two forty.
Four percent vegetable overall, so nutritionally much much better choice. Yes, relatively high in concentrated sugars. Yes, you're better to make your own of one hundred percent veggie, don't get me wrong, or using beechtroot, selery, carrot kale and.
Then one apple one hundred percent.
But this is one of my favorites from a store bought perspective, simply because you're actually getting some vegetable through it. Yes, it's quite high and concentrated sugars. I'd probably do a two hundred meal served once a day if you're looking to add a concentrated source of nutrients. This would be one of my top picks for a green juice in the supermarket, and for one that actually tastes quite nice,
because that's the other thing. Doesn't matter how good it is nutritionally, if it doesn't taste good.
So have you tried this one? What do you think?
Yeah? I have, and I'm definitely a fan as well. And when you look at the sugar content per serving, I think both serves are two hundred meals. The daily juice one had eighteen point six grams and this one has seventeen point nine grams, so it's still a really
high sugar content. But even if you're using it because you're malnourished and you need to gain weight, or you have super high energy requirements so you just want to get a couple of veggies into your kids, at least you're getting the additional benefits of a time, probably bit more fiber and the extra nutrient you know benefits as well. And even when you just look at the two photos of the juice, is Susie you can tell that this
is so much more of a better quality product. Look, you look at the greens, and the greens look really really dense where it's the photo. On the other the daily juice one, it's like a light. It almost looks like green cordial, like you can completely see through it. It's basically it'd be what you call a clear blowd in hospital, basically like there's nothing in there but basically simple sugars which are really really quick digesting. This one at least has a bit of nutrients, and it's a
little bit more nutrient dance. You can't actually see through the juice, which to me tells me that it's more nutrient danser. It's got a lot more vegetable bulk there. So I agree, particularly for some of our bussy eaters who don't get a lot of greens, this is probably a good option. And I do really love the fact that it actually has some vegetables in there versus the other one, which you know, was very misleading from marketing perspective. I still can't get over that, Susie. I'm suok.
That's why I swapped it, because I actually I just mentioned before we finish the other green one I like, which is the V eight Power Blend Healthy Greens, because this one is a long life juice, you won't find it in the fresh section, but it has got more than sixty percent veggie, so it's a yellow carrot, apple,
sweet potato and green veggie base. So that's one of the highest proportions of vegguice in supermarket, sixteen point four grams of sugar, so it is slightly lower because of that higher veggie content, and it's a very strong product nutritionally as well. So if you are looking for a green juice, that's a five star health rating on that one. They're my two picks. It's the Impressed Fresh Green Juice, or if you don't mind a longer life juice that you find where.
The poppers are hot, it.
Is the Healthy Greens, the V eight Power Blend, and I like their beechtreet juice too. So there is a few options in supermarket, and if you do want a green juice like that, we do have to buy and support them because they don't survive if there's no consumer demand for them. So certainly, if you like a green juice, there are our picks of the bunch to tick the box and the healthy greens that they're advertising, And just.
Quickly a tip for our listeners at home. I love getting like a green juice on a hot summer's day if I'm out at my local cafe or at a farmer's markets or something. But the big thing I find susie is just the added sugar in there. Like they'll make it on a bait of either apple juice or coconut water. So my top tip is, whenever you go and auto a green juice, just ask for it to
be made on cold water. They'll always add fruit in there to add the natural sweetness to their but you just double downing on the amount of sugar when you're getting it on a base of apple juice or as I said, coconut water. So if you ask them to make it on a base of just plain cold water, you're getting a lot more of a nutritious product, and then they can add, you know, the celery in there, the apple, the spinach, kale, whatever it might be. But I think just watch the base that your juice is
made on, and that's the same deal. If you're someone who loves a cye balls. I don't know if we've ever talked about them. We should do a whole podcast on them, Susia, I think, but what's the base at which those drinks are made on, because it can really add extra ton of sugar into your juice.
And the other tip I have is my other favorite one is slim Green from Top Juice, but I ask it to be blended with ice, and that's a delicious one too, And it's really low calorie and quite delicious, and it's.
A good one to get the kids on when they're small.
If you're giving them a drink when they're out, stick clear of the sugar boost juices and smoothies and instead get them a small veggie juice ended with ice and get them onto a more tart flavor rather than sweet juices.
And there'll be veggie juice converts for their life.
So that's a really good trick for young kids if you're buying them juices and stuff when you're out at the shopping center.
Yeah, they won't like you now, but they'll thank you when they're twenty.
My kids love it Leanne green. We get a green and a red juice. They've loved it from when they're little. They love it. They fight with their father over it, so it really can be really good for them and a good way actually for kids if you're worried about their veggie intake. Not as good of course as fresh veggie cooked and things, but a good way to get a concentrated range of vegetable nutrients. If they enjoy a beet troot based or a green based.
Juice, yeah's still beneficial.
All right.
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