Who Wants To Get Naked (Juice)?

When you're standing in front of the beverage cooler at any grocery store, there are always an overwhelming amount of options, from sodas to "enhanced waters" to fruit juice smoothies, etc. Logically, it would make sense that getting a fruit drink with no added sugars or preservatives, like a Naked Juice Smoothie, would be the healthiest option. Fruit and vitamins... sounds like a deal, right? But let's rewind for a hot sec.

Let's take "The Blue Machine," for example. In just one 15.2 oz bottle, you can find the rough equivalent of 3 apples, 1 banana, 27 blueberries, and 3 blackberries. Woah nelly, that's a lot of fruit in one bottle. But that's also 340 calories and 80 grams of carbohydrates (almost 60 grams of sugar).

While I personally don't adhere strictly to the USDA's recommended daily food values, these values do provide a loose idea of how to aim for a well-balanced diet. The USDA encourages Americans to eat about 2 servings of fruit a day (2 cups) -- the ingredients of this one bottle obviously exceed that.

These are my thoughts on why I think Naked Juice Smoothies are overall, pretty lamesauce:

1. You don't need to eat thaaaat much fruit in one day....Fruits are the shiznasty and I love blueberries galore, but fruits are also are clearly high in carbs, so you need to balance your intake accordingly.

2. While juicing fruits/veggies is a great way to get vitamins, you would need to drink up right away in order to reap maximum health benefits. Once freshly juiced fruits/veggies are exposed to air, they begin to lose their nutritional value and the vitamin content is reduced. By the time you get a bottle of Naked Juice that's been processed, packaged, and shipped -- how "fresh with vitamins" could it really be?

3. Lacking in the fiber department. Your bowels will be pissed that you're just juicing those apples and throwing away all the fiber. The nutrition label actually says that this bottle has 14 grams of dietary fiber (which is quite high), but I don't know-- these juices don't seem to have that much physical bulk in them so I'm not totally buying it and would much rather opt for the real thing. Maybe I'll do a fiber content / poop experiment for my next assignment.....hMmMm (sorry... but you know I can't live without my pooptastic references).

4. No satiety effect. So you drink a bottle of juice but you sure won't be feeling like you just ate 3 apples, 1 banana, 27 blueberries, and 3 blackberries (I feel like I should be singing this to tune of "The 12 Days of Christmas"-- sorry my Jewsephs / Jewsephines, you'll get a shout out soon).

5. No es bueno for blood glucose levels. When you down 60 grams of sugar, you can be sure that that your blood sugar levels will spike high to the sky. Eating the actual fruit, especially with the skin, will provide fiber that will keep these levels balanced so you don't crash.

Conclusion: Anything's fine in moderation and it's not like drinking this juice from time to time is bad for you, per se-- it's just that the real deal is so much more beneficial in so many ways.

In fart's name we pray,
Amen.