When we walk into a quality grocery store, we are likely to find:
- Fresh produce, in the chillier part of the store and,
- Frozen fruit and veggies, in the frozen food section.
When we then purchase these fresh and wholesome fruits and veggies, we are also just as likely to store them in the refrigerator, or a cool, dry place.
The goal is to keep the fresh produce– fresher… longer.
If this is the case, why then do we buy fruit and vegetable juice from an un-refrigerated aisle, that can then be stored, for months, in a room temperature pantry?
The answer, of course, is pasteurization.
When juice is pasteurized, it is heated to a high temperature for a short period of time. Pasteurization destroys bacteria, molds, and unwanted micro-organisms, that might be lurking in the juice. Pasteurization also prolongs shelf-life, making it a much more cost-efficient product. But what happens to those lovely raw vitamins, minerals and enzymes?
Gone baby. All gone.
If heating something can destroy the bad, you better believe that it is going to destroy the good too. What does that leave us with then? Perhaps a miniscule amount of nutrients, but only because most juice manufactures acknowledge this travesty, and attempt to “fortify” their juice with “vitamins”. Hey! On the bright side, 100% juice products are, at least, not chemical ridden, and full of additives, like regular and diet soda pops.
In all seriousness though, after the pasteurization process, the brightly packaged juices, the ones that can sit for an eternity on the shelves of every market, are about as rich in nutrients as a pack of “natural” gummy worms. And that ain’t saying much.
In other words– we are left with sugar. Lots and lots of sugar.
Fructose, the kind of sugar that is found naturally in fruit and vegetables, is fine in moderation when consumed R-A-W. This is because the live enzymes and nutrients that chaperon the sugar, offer the body much needed nourishment, and help the body to break down and assimilate itself, all the while, nourishing the body.
Fruit and vegetables juices, that are freshly pressed, are quite possibly one of the most hydrating, nourishing and healing drinks you can consume.
An avid juicer, I have found my Breville Juicer to be, perhaps, one of the best investments I have ever made.
Fresh juice should ideally be consumed on an empty stomach, without solid food. This infuses the body and tissues with an abundance of vitamins, minerals and live enzymes. Because it is lacking fiber, it does not require digestion– thus it gives up a burst of energy. To learn more about the power of juice, read the article entitled, Enzymes.
Knowing the ingredients in any food is crucial to understanding if it is healthy, or not.
But…
HOW the food, or in this case, juice, is prepared is just as important.
Next time you go to purchase a juice from the market, you may want to consider what about it is healthy, and nutritious, after it has been heated, and treated. You may think you are giving your kids 100% grape juice, when in actuality, you are giving them an indulgent glass of grape sugar liquid. Yum!
I suggest investing in a juicer… you will not regret it.
A Better Juice for Kids 
2 organic pears
1/2 organic golden delicious apple
1/2 inch fresh ginger (optional)
3 stalks of celery
1/2 cucumber
(put through juicer, and serve over ice)
I have a question but not about juice. I eat half an avocado a day or more. I wake up craving them…I crave them after I eat them. My body wants avocado! Thought I like guacamole, I’m mostly just talking any form to eat solid avocado… avocado roll or on a salad, whatever…I’m not picky!
Tell me…is this really bad for me? I know they are good fat but is there a reason my body could be craving them? could eating them daily be hurting me?
I’d love to see a post on this! I’m quite curious.
Hey Melissa!
Funny you should ask about avocados as I was planning to write an article on them.
Avocados are in fact healthy fats, yes! – and you could be craving them because it is your body’s main source of fat.
Additionally, they are very nutrient dense and therefore provide a body with live enzymes and raw vitamins– both of which any healthy body would seek.
As long as you are not having any adverse reactions to them, you are not harming yourself.
I will try to write more on this to come!
Enjoy!!!
Thanks for this post. It was so timely! I just bought a juicer. I’m not sure it’s going to save me any money, but I will say the juice is amazing! I love being able to use up left-over veggies and mix them with fruits or other veggies. I think cucumber makes any juice ultr-refreshing. I just did a post about it, if you’d like to see the pix. I’ll be writing about my juicing experiences as I keep experimenting!
Thanks again for this post and I can’t wait to check out some of your other articles.
andrea
Hi, I have a question about ginger juice. How long will it last in the refrigerator after being juiced?
Thanks,
Sunny
How long will juice I make at home on my juicer last in a fridge?
It would be best to freeze. Generally, I would not drink juice after 3 days (frozen and then left to defrost). it would need to be sealed very tightly during those 3 days as well. It can be done though.
Hi Lauren.
Recently I heard about the Norwalk juicer and how good it is. Is the Breville like it? You mentioned freshly pressed, does the Breville press?
I am really interested in changing our family diet and in juicing but couldn’t if I had to get a Norwalk. It’s so expensive. I see that the Breville is cheaper.
Thanks for your blog. I have so much to learn.
Dona
Hi Dona! I love that you’re interested in bringing freshly pressed juice into the house. You are truly doing your family a great favor.
The Norwalk is great but I love my Breville $150. It is especially a wonderful juicer to start on. You will love it. If you feel like upgrading at a later date, go for it! But I know you will love experimenting with the Breville juicer!
Have fun!!
happened on your site via a google search
my wife and i have been educating ourselves (reading, dr oz, etc) and like the info on this pg a great deal, it’s been very helpful for us
thank you
I am so happy to hear that
I would love to juice but if you have a large family….it is near impossible to afford enough fruit on that daily basis for juicing let alone eating for a snack. And if you are buying organic then you are talking more money. You have to be wealthy to be healthy these days.
Right on .Its the problem of the day and the challenge of the future.Real food diets are impossibly expensive for the middle class family. It’s only going to get worse too.Look for the American youth to generally become less healthy,more underdeveloped and less mentally and intellectually fit.America in the middle is a third world country NOW!.
Your supply store is a important part in equating your cost. I can say for me, a single guy, 42 y/o in Alaska, the cost of juicing for 27 days was equal or even less then my meat eating habits and restaurants. I splurged and it ran me about $400 – $450 for that month. I didn’t worry about waste expense for I drank all my screw-ups and thoroughly enjoyed the later “fruits” of perfection; including an awesome bloody merry mix. I picked up my main portions at Costco. Then to the local food mart to fill in the missing ingredients.
Sam’s had a 25lb bag of carrots for $23 but you had to juice them with in 2-3 days cuz they were about to go bad. Most of Sam’s club bulk fresh food is expensive and in smaller portions then Costco so pay attention. -Up here Sam’s club, from my view food wise, is the ghetto of warehouse food stores Again that’s just my opinion. I see they are breaking down the product portion size thusly making cost per portion greater then Costco. Oh and another thing. Don’t be bashful if your water melon or kale is rotting less then 24 hrs later. -Above all be honest- Take a photo and immediately notify Costco to expect you. If possible bring the product with you.
Look forward to learning about different veggies usually passed up in the grocery store.
-I wouldn’t suggest a juice only diet for longer then a week due to the weight gain you may experience after a 27 day juicing. But there are ways around that.
-Start on a Friday after work and plan on staying home; ill just leave it at that.
-A little lemon is nice in just about any veggie mix.
-Make you juice dinner and drink it, then make breakfast and lunch before bed time.
-Use glass jars for holding in your fridge overnight or longer. Air is the enemy so fill jars to rim then add a little water over top then close up the jar and rinse off the over spill on jar. Or don’t do that leaving air in and let your nose learn what methane gas smell like in the morning! (i think its methane?)
I am not much of a writer, I should have stopped at the Costco suggestion.
Ooh, and if you choose the 27 day + deal, look forward to old soft tissue injuries to rear up in 15-20 days, sensitivity to euphoric highs from your fruity breakfast drink (like that from amphetamines or Vicodin but better) 12-14 days, hunger or cravings for weird things like vinegar 7-10 days, sharper fine vision focus 3-7 days (also expect a day or two of headache in there), learning the difference between FEELING the need to pass gas when you should have been sitting on the porcelain god of acceptance , 1-3 days (priceless!) and for your first fruit and veggie dinner plan on being very close to the above mentioned god, 1hr 24hr’s
I could go on and on…..
Rick Cordova
Alaska
[...] blogger Lauren from Diary of Nutritionist says in her blog post “How Healthy is that Juice?” that, “After the pasteurization process, the brightly packaged juices, the ones that [...]
[...] Pasteurization is a heating process that kills off potential pathogens and in the process… the aforementioned benefits of the juice in the first place. Resulting beverage? Generally a sugary fruit flavored liquid (a diabetics worst nightmare). Check out this article: How Healthy is that Juice? Juice and Pasteurization. [...]
I was writing some counter opinions to the ‘health expert’ on the Today show on my website and stumbled on to this site. Thanks for real information and research. The amount of disinformation on the mass media stations is incredible, for example talking about vitamin C and its ineffectiveness to ward off colds and flu when nearly all the studies regarding C are with synthetic vitamins! Who wants synthetic anything in our foods or vitamins? Thanks, Pete
[...] occurring and found in fruit and vegetables is fine in moderation when consumed raw.This is because the live enzymes and nutrients that chaperon the sugar, offer the body much needed nourishment, and help the body to break down [...]
Ehhh…. So you are saying the process of applying heat to vegetables reduces their nutritional value to minuscule levels?
“If heating something can destroy the bad, you better believe that it is going to destroy the good too. What does that leave us with then? Perhaps a miniscule amount of nutrients”
If heat kills nutrients then eating steamed vegetables is now an utter waste of time because they were heated for higher temperatures and for a longer time then the process of pasteurization…
*rolls eyes*
If you want to make these claims AND you have some serious studies to back them up then that is one thing… Until then they are just personal opinions expressed to make yourself feel good about the way you have chosen to prepare your diet.
Sure cheap sugary juices are unhealthy… but not because they are pasteurized, but because they were made to taste good regardless of nutritional value.
Well I am glad to hear someone so passionate.
Actually, no steaming vegetables is not an “utter waste of time” but actually makes some cruciferous veggies easier on digestion (softening the fibers). Unless you are absolutely scalding your vegetables, steaming and pasteurization are not one in the same. A slow and shorter steam is preferred– leaving veggies bright green and al dente.
During pasteurization, all of the precious food enzymes and much of the nutrients are depleted. In the case of juice– it seems that we are left with shelf-stable liquid sugar. I would highly suggest you try fresh carrot juice and compare it to a flash pasteurized carrot juice… test for yourself. When a sugar is FRESH, is much more beneficial.
Cheap sugary juices are created to taste good… but are you trying to argue that a “nothing-added” 100% pasteurized juice is the same as a freshly pressed/or unpasteurized OJ?
When I freshly press two identical glasses of carrot juice… Heat one up to 185 degrees farenheit for 45 seconds and then let it cool (that is the typical pasteurization process for juices) not only can I not tell a difference in the taste after letting both chill… I would contend that there is no significant difference in nutritional value.
Steaming raises a vegetable to the ambient temperature of the steam (which is about 212 degrees farenheit, the boiling point of water), for a duration of around 10 minutes depending on the vegetable. Therefore if you believe heat is what is killing the vital nutrients in vegetables, then steaming does more damage since it raises the temperature even higher, and for 10 times the duration. Hence, you would have to be against steaming as well…
If your point of the post was to compare the nutritional value of pressing your own vegetable juice versus the nutrional value of Welches or Sunny D then I agree, fresh pressed vegetable juice with no additives is better then that kind of reconstituted, sugar enhanced, “juice”. But saying the reason for this nutritional difference is pasteurization can misguide “passionate” people who take food fads to extreme… AKA people who buy and drink raw milk, then spend a few months or worse in the hospital from e coli and salmonella infections. I can name more then several occasions within the last year (conteloups from colorado, sprouts from germany etc) where fresh produce, foods which easily could be used in juicing, were contaminated by bacteria and killed dozens of people. No one would have died if these vegetables were juiced and pasteurized, no matter how much e coli was on them.
Anyways, just the ranting of a twenty something health nut like you… bored at work.
FRUITS VEGETABLES SPROUTS ETC DIFFER ON A CELLULAR LEVEL, YOUR STEAMING VEGETABLES IS STRAW MAN! LAUREN IS GOOD HAS GONE GOREAT DEED THIS ARTICLE
NO ONE BOILES ORANGES OR STEAMS MANGOS ROLL EYES BECAUSE BLINDNESS AND IGNORANCE
well, contending that there is “no significant difference in nutritional value” based on taste alone is an argument that will not hold water.
but the point about steaming of vegetables does raise questions. the blog author mentioned earlier about steaming helping digestibility but did not answer whether steaming does or does not remove nutrients from vegetables the way pasteurization supposedly does to juices.
what we need to ascertain is if it is pasteurization that removes nutrients from off the shelf juices? and we cannot say that freshly pressed is better than shelf only because of the “sugar enhancement” in the latter. with finality, does the freshly pressed have more or the same nutrients than off the shelf juices?
using e coli and other bacteria argument just veers us all away from the main point further, we can’t say fresh pressed is less nutritious because of the risks of bacteria, it is non-sequitur…
True… I can not use taste as a way of determining the exact nutritional value, it can be an indicator however of whether the basic structure of the food has changed… And in this case the indicator (taste) suggests it has not. Until I read a scientific study suggesting otherwise, we are left with an argument of opinions, with hopefully common sense leaning in one direction *cough*.
You cannot compare the nutritional value of shelf juices to that of home pressed juices and attribute their differences to pasteurization. There are too many other more significant differences, such as shelf juices being concentrated and then reconstituted, that limit our ability to do so.
“using e coli and other bacteria argument just veers us all away from the main point further, we can’t say fresh pressed is less nutritious because of the risks of bacteria, it is non-sequitur…”
I don’t think it veers from the main point at all… The only reason pasteurization exists is because of this reason, if you want be base an argument against the process you need to explain the consequences of going non pasteurized. If pasteurization does not kill nutrients, as I contend, then there is no disadvantage to the process yet the upside is a safer food. If the author is correct and it does kill off nutrients, then a keen reader must realize their are advantages and that its not just some corporate conspiracy meant to weaken the population.
Hi Lauren,
I really enjoyed this article. I often find myself explaining why I prefer fresh juice of bottled juices and now I can use this article as a reference. Thanks!
Hi,
Can we get sick from unpasteurized fresh juice if my ammune system is compromised?
only if it is contaminated with bacteria. pasteurized juice has very little nutrient value.
Go organic. Go fresh. Anything can potentially harm a compromised immune system, but a cleansing diet of wholesome greens and vegetables (and their juices) can rebuild your immunity.
Thanks so much! Just shared on my FBook page. Great info!
Thank you for your blog post! My daughter came home from school talking about how bad it was to pasteurize juice and I didn’t know much about it. Now we all do! Thanks for the info.
The information in this post is inaccurate. Only a small amount of nutrients are lost through pasteurization. Vitamin C is the most volatile, and 2/3 of the original value will be retained. Plenty of studies to back this up, instead of false claims with no scientific evidence from people trying to sell juicers.
Keep in mind, if juicing, most if not all fruit you buy in a market were ripened in warehouses instead of trees. Fruit must be ripened naturally to acquire nutrients. The fruit companies use to make juice with are picked ripe.
Personally, I only juice the fruits off my own trees. I would never juice or waste my time with market fruits. Everything else I buy pasteurized; choose high pulp if you can.
How nice that you have your own fruit trees.
There are a few juice companies (Genesis Juice out of Oregon and all over the NW and Preshafruit from Australia) that use a high pressure pasteurization process that doesn’t destroy the active enzymes or vitamins and keeps that fresh taste. Sometimes I don’t have time to juice my own in the morning and being able to pick up a bottle is so much easier!
There are a few juice companies (Genesis Juice out of Oregon and all over the NW and Preshafruit from Australia) that use a high pressure pasteurization process that doesn\’t destroy the active enzymes or vitamins and keeps that fresh taste. Sometimes I don\’t have time to juice my own in the morning and being able to pick up a bottle is so much easier!
[...] that it can sit on a shelf, unrefrigerated, for long periods of time. That pasteurization process essentially eliminates all of the fragile, awesome vitamins and minerals that fresh juice provides. Which means that fresh juice is still leaps and bounds more nutritious [...]
Just so you know, the information here is not exactly correct. Being a clinical nutritionist, I figured you’d be interested in information that could help inform people about the nutrition of the things they buy and eat.
In truth, cooking and pasteurization do not significantly damage the nutritional content of juice or food in general. The most volatile nutrient, Vitamin C, is depleted in some measure but nowhere close to being removed completely; Vitamin C is reduced by something more like 30%, not a big problem considering the high availability of C in many different foods. Other nutrients such as lycopene and beta-carotene, however, actually have *increased* bioavailability after cooking.
Also, your point that the enzymes are destroyed is somewhat irrelevant: humans do not make direct use of plant enzymes to catalyze chemical reactions in our bodies, our bodies break them down through digestion and remake them into the enzymes we actually need.
If you’re interested in actual data, here are some studies and articles, at least one of which deals specifically with thermal processing:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=raw-veggies-are-healthier
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09637489809089395
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf0115589?prevSearch=rui+hai+liu&searchHistoryKey=
I’ll quote a relevant section of just one of those articles:
“There were no significant changes in either total phenolics or total flavonoids. These findings indicate thermal processing enhanced the nutritional value of tomatoes by increasing the bioaccessible lycopene content and total antioxidant activity and are against the notion that processed fruits and vegetables have lower nutritional value than fresh produce.”
So I guess flash-steamed tomatoes and pasteurized apple juice aren’t so bad after all. I hope I’ve been able to provide information which can help you re-assess some of the assertions / ideas you’re espousing and update your article.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment.
Sometimes, however… the proof is just in the pudding.
If science were always on the money… then “calories” would just be “calories” and we would all be healthy if we just monitored the quantity of our consumption.
Well that’s a rather puzzling and vague response. Scientific consensus does not, and has never, supported the “calories are calories” view that you think it has.
More importantly, science isn’t some rigid body of knowledge that is right or wrong, it is just a method of investigation that aims to make sure that you really do know what you think you know. To say it isn’t always “on the money” is essentially like saying that making observations about stuff isn’t a good way to make knowledge. The only difference between science and “common sense” observations are that you actually measure and write down the things you notice (i.e. data) to eliminate bias. I mean, you say you have pudding with proof in it, but I wonder how exactly you’ve determined that there is actually proof in there? Through some sort of scientific evaluation, I imagine, unless you’re just guessing?
I had hoped to make visible some of the large amount of relatively unpublicized research that has been done in order to allow people to make better-informed choices. For instance, packaged tomatoes on the shelf can be picked much closer to ripeness than the ones on the produce pile since they are sealed and there is no concern with travel damage. If the heat processing does not decrease their nutritional content, the riper packaged fruit may actually be *more* healthy than the unripe ones in the store. A farmers market is one alternative for ripe produce, but not everyone has easy access to one, nor is local produce always going to be in-season.
Facts like that could be helpful for people. I’d like to think that nutritionists would be concerned with nutrition, as opposed to venerating a particular eating religion in the face of confounding factual evidence.
Speaking of factual evidence, I’m curious what you’re drawing on for yours. You’ve made a pretty strong assertion that pasteurized foods have had their nutritional content annihilated. I’ve shown pretty conclusively that this is simply not the case, unless you can you think of any explanation for why heat-processed food would, by all indications, show significant presence of phenolics, flavinoids, lycopene, and other anti-oxidants and vitamins when none of those things were actually in it? What have I missed?
I imagine you feel that this “pudding” is your factual evidence and, if I interpret you correctly, you mean that people who eat uncooked foods have higher levels of these nutrients in their bodies, or that they have better overall health, and that this proves your statements. There are a couple problems with this, though.
First, there is no indication that this is actually true.
Second, this amounts to saying “raw food eaters are healthy, therefore all their eating habits must be optimally healthy as well”. I shouldn’t have to point out that this is poor reasoning. Their average health level can be attributed to any number of things, from simply eating a lower proportion of junk food (as opposed to specifically eating raw foods), to being more likely to exercise, to being more likely to monitor how balanced their vitamin intake is than the average person. How do you know their health is because of non-pasteurized or raw foods?
hiya i was just wondering, im not very healthly but started a change and i have start to drink already made juices(which i thought was healthly) and it says never ever from concentrate so i thought that was good, but the other day i started lookin on the bottle and notice that it is pasteurizied, and since i have been drinking these juices ive had a sore throat and alot of mucus on my chest, could the juices be causing this??
yes. pasteurized juices are not going to give you near the amount of benefits of a freshly pressed juice. Mucus can occur for a number of reasons– good and bad. It can be a sign of excess inflammation and also a sign of detoxification.
hello why is it that they tell preganant women not to drink unpasturized juice i have a power juicer & love it or how can i pausturize it and keep it tasting good?
Disclaimer: You should always consult with your Doctor prior to making any drastic lifestyle changes.
My answer. You do not want to pasteurize juice. It defeats the purpose behind freshly pressed juices. Pasteurization kills the enzymes that are so beneficial and cleansing. They tell women this for fear that a unpasteurized juice will have pathogens in it that will make a mother with a weakened immunity ill. In a healthy body, we are able to fight off pathogens. We confront pathogens (or bacteria) on an everyday basis. (For instance: when you touch the doorknob of bathroom).
ACID FRUITS CONVERT TO ALKALINE!
DO NOT MIX FRUITS WITH VEGETABLES!
NEVER MIX ANY MELON WITH ANY FRUIT!
again…ACID FRUITS CONVERT TO ALKALINE!
DO NOT MIX FRUITS WITH VEGETABLES!
NEVER MIX ANY MELON WITH ANY FRUIT!
SUGAR + STARCH =FERMENTATION = DEATH
Hi Lauren,
I’ve really enjoyed your post on juice and reading through the critical responses. I notice that you are a certified clinical nutritionist, so clearly you’ve got quite a background of study, science and supporting data for your opinions.
I began an incredible health journey that started back in 2006 after a rapidly growing benign tumor in my left tibia fractured my leg in less than 60 days. No doctor, surgeon or any main stream medical professional could explain the phenomenon. The bone hairline fractured 4 inches down my bone within 60 days due to the hollowing process of this blood filled tumor. Over the years, I’ve researched and studied to eventually learn that my diet had everything to do with where that tumor came from, how fast it grew, and why behind it all.
Of course there are articles out there to argue your assertion on pasteurizing juice. But there are many studies based in science, and scientific publications that do affirm what you explain about enzymes in raw juices. The information is out there for any curious reader and apologies that I don’t have time to include references in my quick note here.
And by the way, the more I learn, the more obvious it becomes that the marketing of nutrition in this country is sub-par at best – but that’s a whole different topic!
Thanks again.
This is all, frankly, nonsence.
http://www.acsh.org/opinion/what-comes-naturally-contaminated-apple-juice-and-opposition-to-pasteurization/
What I mean is this website is, not the link, the link is evidence.
I would like to add that using your Breville Juicer is not actually the best way to juice veges and fruit because it is a high rpm juicer (10,000 – 15,000 rpms), which heats the juice which can affect the nutritional value of the juice. To be more beneficial a lower RPM juicer (masticating juicer, 80 – 100 rpm’s) is better as less friction and heat is created, or even better a presser.
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