This is not as easy a question to answer as it first appears. By fruit juice, I mean juice freshly processed at home through a juicer. Most of the information online discusses the processed juice you buy at the grocery store. Even if the juice in a bottle is 100% organic juice, because of federal regulations, it has been cooked to the point of having lost a lot of nutritional value. Because of that, I have never been a big drinker of bottled juice. But the health impact I am wondering about has nothing to do with the quality of the juice itself, but with the sugar content. The reason I am trying to find the definitive answer is because I am a juicer. I usually make juice at least twice a week, bottling what I don’t drink right away in filled, sealed canning jars. The fruit juice stored this way in the refrigerator keeps for several days. I know there are benefits from drinking this juice that I can feel. I also know the juice is filled with natural, unaltered, enzymes and other nutrients that make me feel better physically and mentally. But what I want to know is am I increasing my risk of insulin resistance by drinking a pint of this fresh juice every day? I could get recurring blood tests, I guess, but I am not really interested in doing that.
I also make vegetable juice, many days drinking a quart of that in addition to my fruit juice. That vegetable juice is mostly leafy greens, and a cucumber, but also includes a few carrots which have their own amount of sugar. In addition, I often add a few drips of stevia to the vegetable juice since when it is mostly juiced greens, it can be quite bitter. I wonder if the stevia can adversely impact blood sugar also, but that is a topic for another day. Some doctors and nutritionists say that this type of juice consumption is healthy and nothing to worry about. Others, for example, Dr. Joseph Mercola seem to say the opposite. For now I am mostly concerned about the fruit juice. I am addicted though, so I hope I am not doing damage to my health by drinking it.
