The Health Risks of Apple Juice Don’t Lie in the Arsenic

Apple juice has faced some controversy in the past few months.

A while back Dr. Oz brought up the fact that apple juice contains unacceptable levels of arsenic, however, nutritionists say that arsenic aside, it is the high levels of sugar which are most disconcerting.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says juice can be part of a healthy diet, but its policy is blunt: “Fruit juice offers no nutritional benefit for infants younger than 6 months” and no benefits over whole fruit for older kids.

Kids under 12 consume 28 percent of all juice and juice drinks, according to the academy. Nationwide, apple juice is second only to orange juice in popularity. Americans slurp 267 ounces of apple juice on average each year, according to the Food Institute’s Almanac of Juice Products and the Juice Products Association, a trade group. Lots more is consumed as an ingredient in juice drinks and various foods.

An Apple a Day Keeps the Cardiologist Away!

As an apple lover I was really happy to hear that eating one or two apples a day may reduce the risk of heart disease.

Like any fruits there are nutritional benefits to eating them.

However, apples in particular seem to have certain properties which allay the onset of cardio-vascular disease.

“We were pleasantly surprised …” that apples so effectively lowered LDL (bad) cholesterol, says study researcher Bahram H. Arjmandi, PhD, RD, Margaret A. Sitton Professor and Chair, Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences at The Florida State University in Tallahassee.

“When we look at the whole composite of human studies and animal studies and in vitro lab studies, when you look at the active components in apples and apple juice, there’s definitely benefit,” says Dianne A. Hyson, PhD, RD, a nutritionist and researcher at the University of California at Davis.

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