Does anyone know if Jamba Juice is really healthy? I suspect it's not because those smoothies just taste too good (so it must be bad for you). I looked at the nutritionals in the store, and one thing that sticks out is the sugar content. It's bloody high. Now I know fruit sugars like fructose is a hell of a lot better than sucrose, the shit in coke or better known as table sugar, but we don't know from the Jamba data what kind of sugar it is. They just list it as "sugars". Also, I suspect that it is sucrose, since they put sorbet in a lot of the smoothies to make them smooth (and sweet). I wonder if the sorbet is packed with sucrose.
Posted by G at November 11, 2004 12:59 PM | TrackBackI have never understood what the big deal is about sucrose (vs other sugars). I'm no expert in biochemistry, but I do know that sugar is made up of glucose and fructose. Glucose is one of the body's primary sources of energy, and I think fructose follows a similar metabolic pathway. So if sucrose is just glucose and fructose, what makes that worse?
BTW, my mom would concur that sucrose is worse. She has a theory that everything in it's white form is bad for you (i.e. white sugar, white flour...)
Posted by: Tree at November 11, 2004 02:38 PMI don't think sucrose is "bad" per se, but in huge quantaties it is, I hear. Same think with salt. Why do they say sucrose is "empty" calories? There must be something wrong with it. Maybe fructose is bad too? But it comes with anti-oxidents when consumed naturally. You're in med school, figure it out, Tops.
Posted by: G at November 11, 2004 02:58 PM"Empty calories" is just energy. To use a crappy analogy, a car needs more than gas to run. It also needs oil, various fluids, a good stereo, brake and tire changes, etc. Similarily, people need more than just fuel to live. Only instead of oil and lube, we need vitamins and protein.
Anyway, we get all of that extra stuff from food. "Empty calories" is food that doesn't have any of that extra stuff.
Needless to say, eat too many empty calories, and you will eventually break down like a Subaru.
Posted by: vivek at November 11, 2004 05:03 PMAnyway, I think Jamba Juice is pretty healthy. All that sugar is ok, because it's packaged with super fruit powers and a fem-boost.
A chocolate bar, which probably has the same amount of sugar but cocoa butter instead of fruit, is still "empty" (or "naked").
Posted by: vivek at November 11, 2004 05:06 PMHere's the deal. Fructose occuring naturally in Fruits is good. However, our wonderful food industry has come up with a much cheaper way to sweeten things: High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). It's cheap, and it sure is sweet.
Problem is fruits have decent amounts of fructose, while HFCS has a ton of it, and it such amounts, the body can't break all of it down, and destabilizes your body's ability to metabolize fat. But I suck at explaining these things, so yo umigh as well read supermarketguru.com/page.cfm/2925.
Posted by: Oli at November 11, 2004 06:19 PM(...white bread, white socks, white supremacists, white baseball players....)
Posted by: Al at November 12, 2004 06:06 PM