Vegetable Juice
It is always preferable to eat whole vegetables and fruits rather than enjoy them in beverage form — unless, of course, you are carefully juicing your veggies at home and are only adding ingredients that are low in calories and sugar.
Unfortunately, our modern-day juice and smoothie craze has led to the belief that all of these drinks are healthy simply because they contain vegetables and fruits. This isn’t always the case.
There are many times when a packaged vegetable juice or smoothie drink has been made even sweeter with sweeteners like sugar or agave, frozen yogurt, sugary protein powders, or non-organic peanut butter.
Oftentimes, these sweet additives are placed in green smoothies or juices because the fear is that these vegetables taste bland without them.
Just to give some sense of how store-bought juices and smoothies can pack on calories and sugar: “A small Amazing Greens Smoothie at Jamba Juice is 420 calories and a whopping 54 grams of sugar,” reports Eat This, Not That. “That’s as many calories as three cans of Coke and as much sugar as four giant Pixie Stix.”
And “One small cup of Kale Orange Power Juice from Jamba Juice has 190 calories and 33 grams of sugar,” which is actually more sugar than a glazed doughnut.
Starting your day with so much sugar is a surefire way to slow down your metabolism, spike blood sugar levels, and leave you crashing and hungry again in just a few hours.
Keep those healthy vegetables — especially leafy greens like spinach and kale — but instead of juicing them, add them to omelettes for a satisfying mix of protein and vitamins and minerals that will kickstart your day in a healthy way.