Thursday, August 07, 2008

Leslie Beck Bashes Juice

And rightly so!

In her (for my non-Canadian readers, Leslie is a prominent Canadian registered dietitian) most recent column Leslie reviews a number of studies that rolled out of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Her conclusions, while certainly not shocking, are bang on,

"You need to count calories (not grams of fat), lay off sugary drinks and increase your consumption of fruits and vegetables if you want to ward off Type 2 diabetes"
and,
"Soft drinks, fruit drinks and even fruit juice supply extra calories that can promote weight gain. Research suggests we don't register the calories we drink as well as the calories we eat. Liquid calories don't fill us up, so we don't compensate for them by eating less food."
So why am I bothering to post about this?

Because unfortunately too many allied health professionals are still snowed by the juice industry and fewer still are willing to openly call for the limitation of juice despite the fact that evidence-based nutrition would encourage you to consume your fruits and vegetables, not drink them.

Kudos to Leslie for publicly bucking that trend!