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Do Fruit and Vegetable Pills Work?
For all the picky eaters out there who don’t like their fruits and vegetables, the pill form of fruits and vegetables may sound like a great idea.
Or, it may sound appealing to those who have a busy lifestyle and can’t seem to eat enough produce in the day.
But, how can one little pill replace all that nutrition that we get in cups of fruits and vegetables?
The Truth
When it sounds too easy to be true, it probably is. Good nutrition takes planning and a conscious effort. We can’t simply pop a pill to fix our diet.
This is the same with multivitamins–a lot of people supplement with multivitamins to make sure they get what they need in the day. However, it is always best to try to eat the most balanced diet and get our vitamins and minerals that way. Hundreds of years ago, humans never had magic pills to fix their diets. We simply need to work on eating plenty of fruits and vegetables with a varied diet.
Juice Plus
The most popular fruit and vegetable pill is Juice Plus. So, what is in this popular pill, and why is it ineffective?
- Made from the dehydrated juice of 17 different fruits, vegetables, and grains.
- The chewables contain added sugars.
- The sugar, salt, fiber, calories are removed.
- Fibers and enzymes are added back in to the pill.
- Contains a variety of vitamins and minerals, but not all vitamins and minerals.
- No information is available for the quantities of the ingredients.
- There are no studies that show Juice Plus is more effective than other forms of supplementation.
Conclusions
When we consume the whole fruit or vegetable, we eat the live food with fiber. That fiber is the key. Recent studies have shown that eating that fiber directly from the fresh produce is the key to absorbing the most phytochemicals, enzymes, and antioxidants. An added bonus is that fresh fruits and veggies keep you fuller for less calories!
Have you tried taking a pill form of fruits and vegetables?
Here’s AN answer: if you can’t eat all the fruit and vegetables you should be, at least eat SOME. To bridge the shortfall, try intelligent supplementation. Study up on supplements, particularly third-party clinical studies preferably performed by a university – avoid studies underwritten by either vitamin companies or drug companies. (You will find, for instance, that resveratrol and lycopene have little to no published science behind their claims, while sulforaphane and alpha lipoic acid do.)
But realize first and foremost that there is no shortcut around diet and lifestyle modification. All the pills in the world can’t do a damn thing for you if you consume an unhealthy Western diet (loaded with fats, white sugar, processed grains, etc) and live a sedentary lifestyle (Google “sitting is the new smoking”).
We know it’s BETTER to eat the fruits & veggies fresh. We concede – we KNOW it’s better. I’ve looked up 4 articles so far that just WILL NOT ANSWER THE QUESTION, and I don’t know why.
Do Fruit and Vegetable Pills Work?
No, they are not good for you, take a tick tack instead.
OR
Yes, they can give you your daily requirement.
OR….
Not as good as mother nature BUT they’re better than the NO fruits & vegetable approach.
I agree with one poster who said that telling people like me who HATE vegetables and eat virtually none and also eat very little fruit (I prefer chocolate milk and cookies) is not helpful. We know we should eat our vegetables and no pill could ever be as good and blah,Blah,Blah. I want to know if vegetable pills are better than nothing and how much better than nothing. Also what do I look for in a pill if it beats the nothing standard. Some are 10.00 a month and others are 40.00 a month. I am already old (almost 60). So maybe it’s not worth doing anything at this point. I’ll keep buying bags of carrots and keep throwing them away when they get moldy.
LOL!!! You are speaking for me!! I have been trying to get this question answered, too. All of these experts but not one can give an answer that makes sense to us!!! So here’s to chocolate Milk & Cookies!!!
Do fruit & veggie pills help? I would say “It depends.” Supplements are not regulated by the FDA, so theoretically a company could list a bunch of “good stuff” as ingredients, but the product may contain none of it. So if the product is cheap – you will get what you pay for. I know that Juice Plus is NSF certified meaning that what they list on ingredients is what is in the product (Olympic athletes are able to consume Juice Plus). There are also several studies that show benefits of the product. So if you are not able to or don’t want to consume a large quantity of raw, fresh fruits and vegetables on a daily basis, Juice Plus would definitely be beneficial to your health. The price is high, and that’s what turns a lot of people off, but I would ask “How much is your health worth?” That’s what you need to decide.
Tried Balance Of Nature fruits and vegetables supplements. Took it three months. It’s a ripoff and it’s expensive. Something better at Walmart for under $15 and it actually works. A big scoop verses a half teaspoon of product is all you get in those three little capsules with BoN.
I have been taking balance of nature for about three years and I have not gotten one cold in the time i have been taking them. They are expensive, that is true but I think they really work.
something better? what?
My daughter has Oral Allergy Syndrome, and she CAN’T eat fruits or vegetables. She is young and growing, so I am looking for real information on ways that we can supplement what she is lacking in her diet. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Have you tried Juice Plus for her?
Do you need extra nutrition tablets if you eat enough varied vegetables and fruit?
no, if you are eating a lot of fruit and vegetables you do not need supplements.
How much is “a lot”? Do you believe that the fruits and vegetables you buy in the store today contain the same amount of nutrition they contained 30 years ago? You should do some research on that. Farmers are mass producing in nutrient deficient soil. They are usually picked before ripe so they can ship long distances and have a longer shelf life (often they are sprayed with chemicals before shipping). If you eat “a lot” (relative term) of raw, fresh, vine ripened fruits & veggies grown locally, then you probably don’t need any supplemental sources of nutrition.
Yes you do… fruit and veggies are grown in soils that are short of minerals and other nutrients. So supplementing is a good idea that mean take as well as proper veggies……. not instead of. Even organic food has the same issues…. except without the pesticides.
You mention “recent studies”. Usually this is a term used to “prove” a point without actually providing any information.
Can you cite these studies by researchers, dates, numbers please?
10years ago I was getting ill monthly with colds and flu like symptoms and found Juice Plus very affective in helping me keep well. In fact after starting the veg and fruit capsules I didn’t get ill again for another 4years! Was life changing for me and the medical research is there to back this product up. I realise that all products are not the same and some multivitamin mixes are not very easily digestible. I understand that this product does not have the same fibre content as eating the whole fruit and veg but the benefit of getting such a massive amount of live phytonutrients ( http://m.livescience.com/52541-phytonutrients.html ) worked wonders for me.
I grow really tired of being told that it is best to eat fruits and vegetables. I can’t or I’m not going to. So spare me the health lecture which I can find elsewhere and advise me on the best fruit and vegetable supplement.
Juice Plus is simply the best. The formula has been perfected over the last 40 years and there’s 37 published peer reviewed medical journal studies documenting the effects of the products. Their proprietary process to make the capsules is done in a way that no nutrients are harmed, you get everything but the water from the plants.
para adelgazar hay que comer poco y correr mucho
lo de mas son tonterias.
Always supplement fruits and vegetables because when you take fruits/vegetables especially the ones that are not fresh i.e processed/refrigerated you do not take the required quantities/nutrition needed by the body hence supplements helps.
If its true alternative of fruits and vegetable then it greats for people like me whose dont like fruits and vegetable and have busy life routine but i have one doubt about these kind of pills may they have any side effects
Wow what will they think up next. While supplements can be a great help – eating fruits and the actual functional foods is always the better choice. Supplement when you need to!
Your idea of pill expanding into actual fruit really sounded like fun.
Fruits and vegetables as a whole contain much more essentials than a pill would. They contain fibers, water and multivitamins which can’t be found in a compact pill altogether. So I am on the real and fresh thing.
Unless those pills expand into actual fruit once they hit your stomach (like the little capsules with sponges that grow into animal shapes when you drop them in water,) I’ll stick with the real thing.
Oh and I forgot to add that some brands are a total waste of money, and some actually look decent. Genuine Health and Progressive look good to me but the GNC one seems lacking, Cytogen makes on too that looks like BS to me.
I am 50/50 on this one. On one hand the ingredients of a lot of these veggie supplements look amazing. Geniunie Health Greens has things like Spirulina, Chlorella, and Wheatgrass. I am guessing the majority of people are not including Spirulina in their regular diet. I think it can have its benefits. Some even have a multivitamin thrown in. When my partner went camping in the desert he used products like these because he couldn’t bring fresh stuff. You certainly can’t rely on veggie supplements, but If you are someone who just does not and will not eat any fruits and veggies than at least you can try this and get some benefits.
I would never take a vegetable “pill”. There are too many valuable phytonutrients in plants that you can’t replicate in a lab. Besides, there aren’t many calories in veggies to begin with–why remove them? Your best bet is probably to eat a variety of fruits and veggies and take a multivitamin to round out your diet.
I’m about to start lemtrada for ms and am not allowed fresh fruit or veg after treatment will supplements be a safer option for me?
There are studies that show multivitamins (created in a lab) have little to no benefit to the body. The body was designed to consume and process food, not something created in a lab. Some products (like Juice Plus) are food products (dehydrated to powder form and put in a capsule or gummy). If you look, it actually has a food label. And if your child finds the gummies and consumes the entire bag, it is completely safe – not true for most supplements. Fresh, raw, vine-ripened fruits and vegetables (grown organically) is definitely the most beneficial, but Juice Plus is great for supplementing what you don’t or can’t eat.