You may have seen Naked Food Juice drinks in the produce section of the local grocery or convenience store, toted around in colorful bottles by your classmates or guzzled by the cast of the last season’s Real World Chicago.
The juice, which first arrived in Boston in February 2002, boasts that it contains enough vitamins and minerals to replace an entire meal.
‘If you eat or drink nothing else, get Naked,’ the slogan on the bottle reads.
However, Joan Salge Blake, a nutrition professor at Boston University’s Sargent College of Rehab, states that no one juice or food should replace an entire meal, which contains a wider variety of nutrients.
‘Just because you fortify something doesn’t give it phytochemicals, which are found naturally in foods and help reduce the risk of many diseases. You can’t extract vitamins and say something is equal to food.’ she said.
The phytochemicals Salge Blake refers to are plants’ natural protections against disease, which also reduce disease risk for people.
Most varieties of Naked Food Juice contain high percentages of vitamins and nutrients. For example, ‘Well Being,’ specifically designed to give your immune system a boost, is packed with 250 percent of your daily requirement of Vitamin C, 50 percent zinc and Echinacea (based on a 2,000-calorie diet).
‘It’s ok to have a little extra Vitamin C,’ Salge Blake said, ‘but you want to try to stay close to your daily needs.’
The daily need for Vitamin C is 75 milligrams for females aged 19 and up, and 90 milligrams for males aged 19 and up, she said. While the juice does not supply an unreasonable excess of Vitamin C, there are other sources that contain enough Vitamin C and other nutrients, without the calories found in juice. Salge Blake cites a medium-sized navel orange’s contents, containing 75 milligrams of Vitamin C, with only 60 calories, as opposed to Well Being’s 140 calories.
Salge Blake says that juice, as long as it is 100 percent juice and not a juice drink, cocktail or blend, is certainly a good way to meet your daily need of two to four servings of fruit, but only in combination with pieces of fruit. Fruit contains fiber that juice does not have; the medium navel orange contains three grams of fiber, whereas Well Being, though 100 percent juice, does not contain any.
According to Salge Blake, other problems with juices in general are that juice containers come in all different sizes, causing negligence in the amount of servings people may be consuming in one sitting. An eight-ounce bottle of Naked contains two servings, so drinking the entire bottle in one sitting requires the doubling of the amount of sugars and calories listed on the bottle’s nutrition facts.
These calories add up quickly if too much juice is consumed, and they displace other calories in your diet. There has to be a blend, Salge Blake says.
‘Have some 100 percent juice and also have some pieces of fruit; the best diet is well balanced,’ she recommended.
Naked Juice, which was started in 1983 in Santa Monica Beach, Calif., offers a broad array of juices, each offering specific vitamins and nutrients for a specific need or problem. The four categories of juices are Lifestyle/Stages, Healing ‘ Recovery, Refuel and Performance Boost. These categories are geared to aid in particular areas, such as fighting cancer, adapting to change, energizing and rejuvenating and giving a ‘libido lift.’
But the functions of juices in different categories are sometimes based on the opinion of a few nutritionists or popular belief, and not scientific fact. For example, juices in the ‘fight cancer’ category contain soy, which ‘some nutritionists’ believe may lower the risk of prostate and breast cancers in Asians and Americans. Zenergy, is listed as the ‘libido lift’ juice because it contains Panax ginseng, which ‘is thought to offer that little ‘lift’ that can boost your love quotient,’ according to the Naked Juice website.
And since some of the juices contain herbs like echinacea, Salge Blake recommends having a health professional oversee what herbs you are taking. And, she adds, it is always a good idea to talk with a health professional before adding any supplement to your diet since it is possible to take in too much of one nutrient in combination with a diet.
So as long as you keep a balanced diet, it’s ok to go ahead and get a little Naked.
