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Comment by bmelton | Hacker News Reader

Similarly, I read something recently (no link, sorry) that stated something like the following (poorly paraphrased):

  Juice is fine to drink as it's generally healthy,
  but if you're going to drink it, do so quickly 
  instead of sipping on it for long periods.

The premise being exactly what you surmised, that chugging a small glass of OJ is much better for your teeth than sipping it and putting your teeth into contact with it for so much longer.

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Juice is for most intents and purposes no healthier dan soda. It's mostly sugar and acid. The fact that said sugar and acid used to reside in a piece of fruit makes no difference at all.

If you want the health benefits of fruit, eat a piece of fruit.

I love the conviction with which you say that.

So, there is no difference between compounds that we've evolved to consume over millions of years, and ones which were designed in the last 30 to be as addictive and as cheap to make as possible?

While I do not claim that there is evidence of difference (I cannot provide any), it is unfounded to claim that there is none, whether based on some (inherently) limited study of effects, or just based on lack of knowledge otherwise.

To be clear, I'm NOT talking about "Honest to god freshly squeezed tropicana juice", which is stretching the definition of what "squeezed orange juice" means (In case you are not aware - they boil it in vacuum, which gives it a much longer storage and shelf life, but kills taste and probably also any nutritional value; flavor is later added with a market-specific artificial "flavor kit" before packaging to consumers).

I'm talking about actually taking an orange, squeezing that, and drinking it. Which should be the only acceptable definition for "orange juice", I think.

It may be what you consider the "acceptable definition" of fruit juice, but it is not the definition in common use.

Also, you are not evolutionarily adapted to eat compounds. You are evolutionarily adapted to eat foods. And fruit juice is not a food you are evolutionarily adapted to eat. It is very different, biologically, from eating an actual fruit.

For those who might be wondering, one such difference is the presence of fiber in fruit, but the lack of fiber in fruit juices.

As I've mentioned in a reply above, I accept the criticism. Grudgingly.

While it is not really comparable, I wonder if 50 years from now a study about the value of vegetables will use Pizza as an acceptable vegetable portion (because http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45306416/ns/health-diet_and_nutr... ) We laugh it this now, but 30 years from now, it might seem perfectly plausible to consider pizza a vegetable.

Freshly squeezed oranges are not what most people consume when they consume juice. A sterilized, overly processed concoction of fructose and acid, which, yes, originated in fruit, is.

By defining "fruit juice" to be something almost nobody ever consumes, then declaring the actual fruit juice people actually consume as being bad, it seems to me that you're agreeing with him while using language that pretends you're not.

Well, I accept the criticism.

I grew up knowing actual fresh squeezed orange juice as "orange juice", and everything else as "orange beverage" (well, an equivalent translation in my native language).

But I realize that, since I moved to the US, I haven't actually had anything that tastes like real Orange Juice. Regardless of what it says on the package or what the waiter says.

Well, there you go. Just different assumptions and experiences.

I believe that you're still better off just eating the orange rather than drinking the juice. But I don't doubt that what you see as proper juice is way better than the stuff you find in stores.

Your entire post is nothing but fallacies. You don't evolve to do anything. And you didn't evolve in the presence of orange juice, oranges didn't exist. And it doesn't matter, because that is just the naturalistic fallacy. Something being "natural" doesn't make it good, and something being "artificial" doesn't make it bad. We did not evolve with modern tooth cleaning equipment or flouride treatments either, but those are still beneficial to our teeth.

There is absolutely no evidence to support the notion that pop is any worse for you than a fruit juice of similar acidity and caloric content.

It would help to read what I was replying to, and what I was actually replying:

GP said: "Juice is for most intents and purposes no healthier dan soda."

You said: "There is absolutely no evidence to support the notion that pop is any worse for you than a fruit juice of similar acidity and caloric content."

I said: "There is no evidence of difference", which is exactly what you said.

Can you spot the difference between yourself and GP, though? One is an assertion; the other is an assertion of no evidence against said assertion.

> "You don't evolve to do anything"

We clearly don't speak the same language. What do you mean by that? I breathe; did I not evolve to breathe?

Where did I state that everything "natural is good" or that anything "artificial is bad"? Who and what are you arguing with?

I did read it, you are trying to pretend you said something other than what you post says. You made all the fallacious claims I pointed out.

As for evolution, no you did not evolve to do anything. Evolution is a process, it does not have goals. It is not aiming to get somewhere, or accomplish something. Which is why claiming you "evolved to eat X" is nonsense. Your ancestors evolved the ability to gain nutrition from X, that doesn't mean X is good for you. It means in prehistoric times, the short term gain from being able to gain nutrition from X was greater than any downsides to it (it could cause cancer 100% guaranteed, but if it lets you survive in the short term long enough to reproduce and rear offspring, it will still end up selected for).

> I did read it, you are trying to pretend you said something other than what you post says. You made all the fallacious claims I pointed out.

Clearly we are NOT speaking the same language.

> As for evolution, no you did not evolve to do anything

Clearly, again, we are NOT speaking the same language. You react as if I said "I evolved with the goal of breathing", which is a possible, but improbable, interpretation of what I wrote. I meant "My kind has evolved the ability and necessity to breathe", for which "I evolved to breathe is" a shorthand, acceptable where I live.

And if you can point out how my statement that "I do not claim that there is evidence of difference (I cannot provide any)" can be construed as anything but "There is no evidence of difference" (that I know of), I would be grateful. Because you are calling me a liar in not so many words, and I don't like that in general (but I don't really care either, given we're both anonymous)

You are right, we are not speaking the same language. You are speaking "I want to argue about nothing for no reason", and I am speaking english. Go read the thread again, I did not make any claims other than that your post was full of fallacies. I didn't say "you said juice is healthy". You are accusing me of exactly what you are doing. Grow up.

Most juice is so heavily processed it should be labelled as soda.

It may be better for your teeth, but I wonder if chugging it will spike your insulin more.

That was kind of the same question I had when I read it, but I came to the (completely uninformed) conclusion that probably, the body's absorption rate was self-metering enough that it probably wouldn't make a difference drinking it all at once vs. drinking it over a 20 minute period.

I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support this however, so who knows?

Fructose is metabolised by the liver, which may only be able to handle so much at a time without negative effects. Raw fruit is digested more slowly than juice due its fibre content, so drinking juice slowly could be worse for your teeth but better for your liver.

Even modern raw fruit are significantly larger and sweeter than a few hundred years ago, so maybe we should just stick to berries.

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