Pre-Packed Juice, is it Good for You?

Pre-Packed Juice, is it Good for You?

Processed bottled juice on supermarket shelves comes in all forms – plastic or glass bottles, canned, refrigerated cartons or vacuum packed and can last up to 2 years.

The fruit processing industry uses powerful yet the same low speed extraction process as the cold press juicers to extract the maximum yield of juice from the fruit.

Once cold pressed, fresh fruit juice is quickly pasteurised or heat treated at around 90?C. This heating process has been shown to destroy certain nutrients and changes the pH from alkaline to acid. Most antioxidants are heat sensitive and can reduce by 15% each time a juice is heated.

By the time the juice is packed and sold in the supermarket or deli it may have been heated at 2 or 3 locations to get in the final bottle and the long term storage of pasteurised juice leads to a further breakdown of nutrients over time.

If you look closely at the ingredients, you will see that a lot of juice companies use juice concentrates to save costs, but regardless of whether the juice is made from concentrate or not, the alkaline properties and naturally occurring nutrients are greatly diminished. These juice concentrates are often imported and typically involve hours of heating to remove the water, leaving little nutritional value behind.

Hugh Moran is a qualified Naturopath with 5 years clinical experience. His background is in the food and health food industries.

Hugh comes from a family that was in the fruit processing industry for 32 years and he has also worked extensively as a health foods retailer.

He has a life long passion for health and wellbeing and you can visit Hugh's detox blog for great health recipes and healthful tips

Make your own V8 Juice!

v8-juice
3-4 Tomatoes - a great alkalizer when consumed without sugars or starches!

2 Carrots - supports the immune system!

½ Beetroot - a great blood builder!

1 Stalk of Celery - to improve digestion!

½ Red Capsicum - good for skin, hair & nails!

¼ cup Cucumber (or 1 Lebanese cucumber) - a natural diuretic

2 Apples - to aid liver function improve taste!

Pinch of Parsley - high in minerals including potassium!

For more great health recipes, visit our healthy recipes page and start your healthy eating plan today!

Article written by Hugh Moran - Resident Naturopath at Vitality 4 Life.

The information on the properties of living juice was taken from Dr. Norman Walker’s book - Fresh Vegetable & Fruit Juices RRP $20.