Are Store-Bought Juices Okay to Drink?

I’m back in the States ready to get to work and begin the launch of my next book, Reboot with Joe: Fully Charged. This is the first time I’m answering your Ask Joe Anything questions in the US and I’m happy to say that it’s beautiful here too, just like it was back home in Australia. For this week’s questions and answers, watch my video or read the transcribed answers — whatever suits you!  If you’ve missed the previous Ask Joe Anything series, you can check out the questions I’ve already tackled in the past five weeks.

1. What is your opinion on the fruit and vegetable juices in grocery stores? Some of them mention that they are fresh and 100% vegetable or fruit. Do you recommend those?
   I don’t like saying those juices are bad for you because I don’t use the words bad for you or good for you when it comes to food — some foods have more nutrients than others and some don’t. The way I think about it is the best thing you can do is juice your own  — make them at home, freshly squeezed, freshly pressed, mostly 80% veggie, 20% fruit and drink them. You can store them in a glass jar for up to three days so you can get all of your juicing out of the way. (Here are our top tips for storing your juice.)

   When you’re on the run and you need to grab a juice from a store, we recommend any juices that have been cold-pressed and HPP’d — that means no heat has been applied to the product at all. A great example of this is Evolution Fresh, founded by a mate of mine, Jimmy Rosenberg who sold it to Starbucks. Howard Schultz at Starbucks thought it was a great idea to bring fresh produce in liquid form to his stores and so Evolution Fresh is now a Starbucks brand and the integrity of that juice is fantastic. Other brands are Suja, Blueprint and there are now a myriad of other brands on the market that are HPP which stands for High Pressure Processing  — no heat, all done under maximum pressure and the temperature of juices are kept at a very low temperature  — below 10 degrees C and Evolution Fresh’s point of view is to keep it below 40 degrees F the whole way through.

   When it comes to Naked and Odwalla, if you have to and that’s all the choice you’ve got. then its okay. We don’t necessarily say they are bad for you but they are not as nutrient dense as others.  When you get down to the canned juice, well I figure that’s just like water and reconstituted flavoring which is like sugar so best not to go that route. That’s more like soda.

2. ‪ When you Rebooted, were you worried about muscle loss?
   I wasn’t worried about it bcause for me I was trying to get healthy and get myself in a position where I didn’t have to take my medication anymore. So muscle loss was way down on the priority list. However, the Reboot with Joe Medical Advisory Board has done a lot of work on this and they have come up with the idea that if you’re going to juice for more than 10 days then you really should put in a protein supplement. We have one on the website, the Reboot with Joe Protein Powder, for those living in America that’s a pea protein but if you don’t live here then I suggest you try and get a protein supplement that is plant-based. try that and hopefully that will help.

   Bottom line, is that if you’re an athlete and don’t want to lose muscle, then adding that in will help. Personally, I wasn’t too worried. The good news is when you finish your Reboot and start to eat lots of healthy plant-based proteins be it nuts, beans, seeds, legumes, etc. and you start working out and moving like the body should then you will maintain that muscle.

Not sure what Ask Joe Anything is? It’s a weekly series where I post a video to answer your questions. They can be about juicing, Rebooting, eating plants, my personal life, anything! You can submit either by leaving your question in the comments below or including the #AskJoeAnything tag on my Facebook, Twitter (@JoeTheJuicer or @RebootWithJoe) or my Instagram account @JoeTheJuicer.

Signing off from the beautiful northwest here in Seattle. Stay tuned for lots of exciting news coming up in the next few weeks by signing up for our newsletter.