Hey Scott - you've said a few times that fruit juices lose their nutritional value as a result of the packaging process. Why is this specifically?

Packaging? I would have thought they lose it through all the refinement processes? I think the main problem is all the fructose/sugars (and lack of fibre) which would otherwise be harder to overdo with real fruit.

Most packaged fruit juices are heated &/or pasteurised. That will destroy/alter the nutritional value.

Even if you freshly juiced an orange and left it in a glass for a few days it will lose some of it's benefits, so no matter how good the packaging etc etc they juice inside will not be the same as a freshly made one.

The Phytochemicals, enzymes and vitamins all start to "die" once they have been "removed" (by juicing/squeezing) from the fruit. This is more relevant to those high sugar fruits (most fruits). Low sugar fruits and most veg are not affected by this as much as it is the sugar that when exposed to air will start to degrade the nutritional value afaik.

The other problem is that almost all fruit juices are very high in sugar. And whilst juicing yourself is better I'd still recommend not having loads of high sugar freshly juiced fruits.

Hope that helps.

Great help thanks. I don't drink any fruit juices...actually a discussion started on another forum and I was just curious as to why the micronutrients' benefits were lost.

As good as they sound, they are just sugared water. Because as Karlos says the fibre is removed and other goodies.

Although strangely, removing the fibre (a la Juicing) is beneficial if you take it on an empty stomach first thing in the morning; it will be digested and absorbed almost straight away. I don't have a juicer myself and just blend everything up into a watery paste.