Orange Juice Substitutes: Raw Honey, Beet Juice, Papaya Juice

Strongbad

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2015
Messages
291
Hi guys!

I'm working on a solution to reduce the amount of Orange Juice per day. So far, I've consumed about 4-5 glasses of orange juice per day, and it makes me feel terrible. Feeling bloated, abs disappearing, increasing waistline, and a bit of heartburn after each drink. There's simply too much liquid in my diet. Not to mention I also drink 2 glasses of milk + raw cacao, a glass of bone broth and a glass of matcha tea. Too much liquid...

Ray Peat also said that having too much liquid puts too much stress into the body, which is the opposite of what we're aiming for in this diet. So more reason to reduce daily OJ consumption.

Anyway, I played around with Cronometer and shopping around "green" grocery stores and found some solutions: raw honey, papaya (nectar) juice and beet juice.

Why raw honey is better than orange juice: OJ has about 26g of carbs per CUP compared to 17g of carbs per TABLESPOON. That means if I consume about 1.5 tablespoon of Raw Honey, I get the same amount of carbs off a cup of OJ. Sure it doesn't have as much as Vitamin C, but a glass of OJ can take care of that.

Payapa (nectar) juice and Beet juice are also more dense in nutrient, so you get more bang-for-the-buck nutrition-wise than Orange Juice. Sure, they cost a bit more than OJ, but that's a small price to pay for leaner waistline and no bloated / heartburn feeling.

As of yesterday, I consume 15 tablespoons of raw honey and 1 glass of mixed papaya + beet + orange juice. Boy, it feels so much better than drinking 5 glasses of orange juice per day! Still drinking 2 glasses of milk, 1 glass of bone broth and 1 glass of matcha tea, though.

These are their nutrition value (based on the the labels):

8fl Oz (240mL), with percent daily values based on a 2000 calorie diet

Raw Honey (1 tablespoon):
Calories: 60
Carbs: 17g

Payapa Nectar Juice (papaya, apple, pineapple juice blend):
Calories: 130
Sodium: 15mg
Potassium: 390mg
Carbs: 32g
Protein: 1g
Vitamin A: 15%
Vitamin C: 35%
Calcium: 4%
Iron: 2%
Sodium: 2400mg
Potassium: 3500mgg

Beet Juice:
Calories: 140
Sodium 75mg
Potassium: 970mg
Carbs: 32g
Protein: 5g
Vitamin A: 2%
Vitamin C: 20%
Calcium: 6%
Iron: 15%
Vitamin E: 2%
Vitamin K: 2%
Vitamin B1: 6%
Vitamin B2: 10%
Niacin: 6%
Vitamin B6: 15%
Folate: 60% (!!!)
Pantothenic Acid: 6%
Phosphorus: 15%
Magnessium: 20%
Zinc: 8%
Manganese: 50% (!!!)

Orange Juice:
Calories: 110
Potassium: 450mg
Carbs: 26g
Protein: 2g
Vitamin C: 100% (!!!)
Thiamin: 10%
Vitamin B6: 4%
Magnesium: 6%
Calcium: 2%
Niacin: 2%
Folate: 15%
 

mannego

New Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2015
Messages
1
I've heard Ray Peat say he drinks a quart of Orange Juice and 2 quarts of milk daily (along with 5 cups of coffee).
And I've also heard him say that the citric acid in Orange Juice makes the body excrete calcium.
I thought the Calcium intake was a good thing.
So I am confused on this.
Can someone please enlighten me?
 

nikotrope

Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2014
Messages
318
Location
France
2 liters of liquids, that's not that much. If more sugar and less liquids solved the problem, maybe more salt could be beneficial for your liquid and bloating problems. I recently took a tablespoon of salt in small amounts through the day and my gut felt really better. Salt is an natural antihistamine . Salt is also helping blood vessels to not be leaky so if you take enough it may make your gut less permeable to endotoxin and other toxins.
 

tara

Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
10,368
mannego said:
I've heard Ray Peat say he drinks a quart of Orange Juice and 2 quarts of milk daily (along with 5 cups of coffee).
And I've also heard him say that the citric acid in Orange Juice makes the body excrete calcium.
I thought the Calcium intake was a good thing.
So I am confused on this.
Can someone please enlighten me?
My reading of Peat is that he does not favour high citric acid consumption, that citric acid is a problem in unripe oranges, and that the sweet ripe oranges he recommends don't have much of it.

Peat does frequently take about the importance of generous calcium intake, ideally from milk, but supplemented by eggshell etc if necessary.

My guess is that Peat doesn't have a problem with 3 quarts of fluid because his metabolism is strong, he eats enough salty foods and enough calories, and also he has not subjected himself to prolonged severe carb or calorie deprivation that he needs to recover from.

@ Strongbad - Papaya is delicious! It's possible you might might benefit from higher carb density, maybe even without reducing fluids too much. Or maybe you do need less fluids temporarily while you get your carb consumption and metabolism up. 2l fluids is not a lot for healthy people. Having trouble with it seems to be an indication of low metabolism.
It may not be possible to recover without some bloating. You may need to choose between getting healthy and the (often unhealthy) 'healthy look'.
 

Ben

Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2013
Messages
497
Why not make a fruit punch with orange juice, papaya nectar, and honey, instead of going for one or the other?
 
OP
Strongbad

Strongbad

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2015
Messages
291
Yes, that's what I'm doing now. Papaya + Beet + Orange juice is delicious! :partydance

Still playing with the right amount (feel good) of liquid amount. Most likely it'll be more than 1 cup of juice but definitely not 5 cups of juice per day lol that's just too much.

But I'm a little surprised on how understated other fruit juices are compared to orange juice in Peatian diet. Beet and Papaya have more nutrient content than Orange Juice yet they're not discussed much here. I'm pretty sure there are other hidden gems of juices which don't get enough coverage, too.

In terms of lack of calcium, that can easily be covered by taking some eggshell powder :mrgreen:
 

johns74

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2014
Messages
501
But beet has oxalic acid which reduces calcium absorption and increases kidney stones. Even if you take additional calcium, you still have higher oxalic acid to react with it internally to form calcium oxalate stones.

All that said, I'm sure some people can tolerate it.
 
OP
Strongbad

Strongbad

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2015
Messages
291
Okay if that's the case I should just omit Beet juice then or minimize it in the mixture to miniscule.
 

johns74

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2014
Messages
501
Strongbad said:
Okay if that's the case I should just omit Beet juice then or minimize it in the mixture to miniscule.

Depends on your risk tolerance. It has something there that is unnecessary and potentially harmful but your body might handle it adequately. There are entire websites devoted to the issue of 'oxalate detox' for people who consumed too much.
 

Peatri Dish

Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
127
Peat also recommends Orange juice for the narigenin. Papayas also have beta carotene which is anti thyroid in higher doses.
 
OP
Strongbad

Strongbad

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2015
Messages
291
Aaaw darnit it then it all goes back to the ground-zero again :x Okay, so very minimum papaya + beet + large orange juice mix, then.
 

FredSonoma

Member
Joined
Jun 23, 2015
Messages
914
Do you think getting honey raw makes a big difference? I've been buying raw honey but its a little expensive.
 

Mittir

Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2013
Messages
2,033
FredSonoma said:
Do you think getting honey raw makes a big difference? I've been buying raw honey but its a little expensive.

I have seen studies that showed commercial honey has high glycemic index compared
to regular honey. It is most likely that heating in commercial honey processing increases
the glycemic index. I have heard before that heating destroy honey's medicinal value.
Honey has anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidantt and antibiotic substance in it. I did not check if there is
any scientific studies to support this claim.

In ayurveda they recommend against heating honey. I have seen a Scandinavian article
where they process honey below body temperature of 98.4 F. There is a big difference
in taste of Commercial and raw honey. You might want to look for honey that is processed
at low temperature. In USA most honey comes from china and they a use lot of problematic
things in their honey. They often feed antibiotic to their bees.
 

kiran

Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2012
Messages
1,054
Back when I was sick it was one of the few things to clear my head. Apple juice is pretty damn awesome. Just gotta be careful about the quality, fresh apple juice is pretty good too.
 

Stuart

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2015
Messages
317
'The high oxalic acid in beets is often mentioned. I would have thought of equal concern is that the nitrtes in them raise nitric oxide levels. Body builders love beets for this very reason. Nitric oxide is anabolic.
AFAIK different types of honey (produced by bees that collect pollen from particular flowers or combinations of flowers) have markedly different G.I.s because the ratio of fructose to glucose varies. Fructose doesn't affect your blood sugar (goes straight to the liver) whereas glucose does. Cane sugar (sucrose) is a combination of fructose and glucose.
Here's a pretty good explanation of monosacchrides (glucose, fructose ) and disaccharides (sucrose, a bit of both). You can't create sucrose just by mixing fructose and glucose though. But your body has no trouble separatng them. Honey is just a mixture of fructose and glucose. But cane sugar is a chemical bond of the two.

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/differe ... -8704.html

Whether honey is raw or pasteurized won't change its G.I., but it will destroy a lot of the antimicrobial factors. Some of the antioxidant activity does remain though too.

O.J. contains high levels of carotenes as does papaya. Any orange (and many of the other brightly coloured ones too) fruit or vegetable contains carotenes.
 

Stuart

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2015
Messages
317
kiran said:
Back when I was sick it was one of the few things to clear my head. Apple juice is pretty damn awesome. Just gotta be careful about the quality, fresh apple juice is pretty good too.

Apples are really high in pectin too. So your gut microbiota love them. You can buy industrially centrifuged apple juice if you don't want the pectin though. But it's very difficult to remove with domestic juicers.
 

Waynish

Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2016
Messages
2,206
So what's with the OJ recommendation if it is high in carotene? I haven't seen these views synced up yet on this forum. (The views being that OJ is a prometabolic food, but carotenes are antimetabolic.)
 

Cirion

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
3,731
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
So what's with the OJ recommendation if it is high in carotene? I haven't seen these views synced up yet on this forum. (The views being that OJ is a prometabolic food, but carotenes are antimetabolic.)

The anti vitamin A sentiments floating around lately aren't Peaty, as far as I know. Although RP did admit that for someone hypothyroid, anything more than 5,000 IU *could* be problematic.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom