Fruit juice - the new smoking

A poison, cynically packaged with
attractive colours to lure in children

I've mentioned before the well-kept secret that fruit juice contains as much, if not more, sugar than the evil fizzy drinks. That message is now seeping out from 'public health professionals'.

“Juice is just like soda, and I’m saying it right here on camera,” pediatric obesity specialist Robert Lustig said in the documentary “Weight of the Nation,” produced in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “There is no difference. When you take fruit and squeeze it, you throw the fiber in the garbage. That was the good part of the fruit. The juice is nature’s way of getting you to eat your fiber.”

Robert Lustig is becoming a familiar figure round these parts. "Nature’s way of getting you to eat your fiber" is a naturalistic fallacy, but then this is a man who thinks that bees were put on earth to stop us eating honey. And if you want fibre, have a Weetabix. He basic point is, however, sound. If you think that fructose is an evil poison (as Lustig does), you have to be against fruit.

When I have compared the calorific content of fruit juice and soda in the past, it has been to highlight the hypocrisy and thinly-veiled class snobbery of the smoothie drinking set. When the mandarins of public health do it, however, it is to take the "next logical step", as the headline indicates.

War on obesity takes aim at fruit juice

It seems that the juice industry ("Big Juice", as they will perhaps soon be known) have been fighting their corner.

Beverage-makers dispute claims that fruit juice and obesity are linked. The Juice Products Association said it supports the pediatrics group’s recommendations on juice but added that “current scientific evidence does not support a relationship between being overweight and juice consumption.” “Scientific evidence strongly maintains the nutritional benefits of 100 percent juice,” the association said. “In fact, studies show that drinking 100 percent fruit juice is associated with a more nutritious diet overall, including reduced intake of dietary fat, saturated fat and added sugars.” As proof, the association cited a cross-sectional study — a snapshot in time — funded by the juice industry that found a correlation between consumption of 100 percent fruit juice and higher nutrient intake in children.

Ooh! An industry-funded study says that fruit juice contains nutrients. We can't believe that now, can we, especially when Barry Popkin says otherwise...

In response, University of North Carolina global nutrition professor Barry Popkin cited six other studies that show correlations between increased fruit juice consumption and increased risk of obesity and diabetes. “There are no studies that show the opposite — that drinking a glass or two of fruit juice each day will have positive long-term health benefits on weight or diabetes [note the carefully narrow selection of diseases mentioned—CJS],” added Popkin, author of “The World Is Fat: The Fads, Trends, Policies, and Products That Are Fattening the Human Race.”

Popkin has been waging this battle for some years and is one of the best known figures in the field. Amongst his previous bon mots are “Soft drinks are linked to diabetes and obesity in the way that tobacco is to lung cancer” and “This is a battle like tobacco–only bigger.”

For him, this is the Holy Grail of public health—the new smoking.

Popkin admits that he couldn’t have imagined warning people off fruit juice 10 years ago.

That, frankly, is because the world was less mad ten years ago.

“But it has taken us about a decade to truly understand the role of fruit juice,” he said. “In many countries, soft drink companies have fought hard to replace soft drinks with fruit juice (made by juice companies they bought), but the research has shown fruit juice has the same effect as soft drinks on our health — all adverse, negative and fairly severe.”

Really? Because fruit is sweet, it's all negative? No vitamin C? No energy? No hydration? No antioxidants? What nonsense.

So, here we are. 2012 and fruit juice is being treated like tobacco. Didn't take long did it? Enjoy your glass of tap water and if you're lucky they'll let you have a bit of apple peel.

Not that there's a slippery slope or anything...