Eat Fruit over drinking Fruit Drinks for health and Cutting Your Grocery Bill

I've never been too much into fruit drinks, but I wanted to look into it the benefits of fruit because it would be easier for me to get my vegetable nutrients. What I found is that it's actually better to eat a piece of fruit rather than a fruit drink?

Why? I will compare an orange to the an 8 oz Tropicana Orange Juice Carton (Which is one of the better for you brands of orange juice).

Health Benefits:
A 4.6 oz orange (I would say this is a medium sized orange) is:

• 62 Calories
• 3.1 grams of Fiber
• 0.2 grams of Fat

Tropicana's Pure Premium Original Orange Juice 6 Pack of 8 Floz Containers 48 Floz (1 Carton):

• 110 Calories
• 0 grams of Fiber
• 0 grams of Fat

The one thing that really separates the piece of fruit from the drink is the fiber in the fruit. Fiber is important to our diets because it does a lot of great thinks such as prevent diabetes, colon cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, etc.

There is also an increased sugar in fruit drinks. This same orange has 12.2 grams of sugar while the tropicana orange juice has 22 grams of sugar. After a week of drinking orange juice for breakfast rather than simply eating an orange, you are consuming 70 more grams of sugar, which is almost equivalent to 2 cans of cokes (86 grams of sugar for 2).

The sugar also hurts your teeth, causing cavities, which as a broke college student, I want to decrease my cost as much as possible by not having to go in for healthcare problems that I can prevent.

If you follow weight watchers like I do, an orange is considered 0 points while this same tropicana orange juice is 2 points.

Lastly, I feel more fulfilled when I eat a piece of fruit rather than drinking a fruit drink. I don't feel as hungry after I eat the orange rather than when I drink the orange juice.

Though it may be easier to grab the pack of juice, I know while I'm peeling my orange that I doing something better for my health.

Cost:

It's cheaper to buy fruit than cartons of drinks.

*This six pack is 4.99 (about .83 per carton) while one orange can be as low as .30, which comes to 1.80 for six. In a year that could save you about $150.

*Note: I know it may be cheaper to buy a big carton of orange juice, but I have noticed most college kids use the cartons of juice for their purchases of fruit drinks.