Little by little the myths with which we grew up are falling.
The last one, nutritional, is quite difficult to assume.
How is it possible that that
natural orange juice that our mothers advised us to drink as soon as possible
to make the most of the vitamin shot has suddenly become one of the villains in our diet?
What has happened so that, inadvertently, experts cross it off the list of most recommended options to 'cheat the stomach' in the middle of the morning?
Well, what has happened, according to Javier Fernández Ligero, a pharmacist and nutritionist, is that "the global concept of breakfast has changed a lot".
Our society, he details, had "'accustomed' to using
carbohydrates as an energy substrate
from the first hour of the day; who else or who less, when getting up in the morning, has a couple of toasts, a bowl of cereals , a glass of chocolate milk or an orange juice ".
Although it may seem like it, the idea is not to demonize
carbohydrates
: "They are not bad in themselves but you have to know how to contextualize them correctly,
linking their intake to the practice of physical exercise
", warns this specialist.
So far everything is clear, but what does all this have to do with orange juice?
Fernández Ligero clarifies the mystery: "When we squeeze an orange,
the fiber remains almost completely in the remains of the pulp
while the
fructose
content
,
the natural sugar in the fruit, remains intact."
How does this seemingly anecdotal detail influence us?
In a lot because, without the fiber 'cushion', "
fructose is going to have an immediate impact on our glycemia
, which is our blood sugar level, much higher than if we eat the whole orange".
The second, and not least, of the aspects is that "
to make a juice you need four or five oranges
, which means that we are getting the
fructose from all those pieces
into our body
, with the brutal kick that that supposes. for our body ".
If we add to this that, instead of doing a physical activity, "we are going to spend the morning sitting in an office, we will start the day with a
high blood glucose
that will make our
insulin
, which is the controlling hormone of the levels of sugar in blood. We will also activate the
inflammatory scale
of our organism ".
Despite the above, this specialist emphasizes that "with this I do not mean that natural orange juices are the culprits of the high percentage of childhood obesity in Spain. But it is clear that we have to
improve the management of carbohydrates at breakfast
. "
"They have become - he continues - a widely used resource for adolescents or the elderly to have something for breakfast but the impact they have on their glucose levels is brutal."
If the natural ones are not recommended, much less the packaged ones: "These juices are, in most cases, water with sweeteners, flavor correctors, etc. Speaking clearly:
powdered water
with a minimum percentage of squeezed juice".
Then what do we do?
"Easy.
Substitute the juice
, with few vitamins and a lot of fructose,
for a piece of fruit
that gives us much more nutritional quality by containing all the healthy components in that food matrix."
HEALTHIER FRUITS
His advice: "Opt for fruits with a low glycemic index. Which ones?
Red fruits
, such as blueberries, blackberries or raspberries, which, in addition, thanks to their high
antioxidant
content
, are going to benefit us a lot in the profile of the cognitive focus, improving our
intellectual performance
".
The
pineapple and papaya
, as
well as having lower levels of fructose, "give us called papain enzymes that, besides being anti -
inflammatory, promote digestion".
The
best time of day to eat fruit
"is marked by physical exercise: that is, before or after doing it."
In this way, "the impact on blood glucose will be much more controlled."
Fernández Ligero once again emphasizes that "we are not interested in putting into our body a dose of fructose that provides us with
a peak of energy that we are not going to use
since we are going to spend four or five hours sitting at our workplace or at the school".
Furthermore, "what we are looking for with breakfast is to be
satiated until lunch
, a feeling that the juice, as it has hardly any fiber, is not going to provide us".
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