Carbohydrates have a mixed reputation among dieters and health-conscious diners. If you number among the low-carb crowd and are looking for a means of further reducing your carbohydrate intake, targeting your beverages is a good tactic. While you can't directly reduce the carbohydrate content of any single ingredient, you can select relatively low-carb ingredients when making your own blended juices.
Carb Fundamentals
To limit your carbs, you first need to understand what constitutes a carbohydrate; one of the basic dietary components, it may be a sugar, a starch or a fiber. Both simple and complex carbohydrates serve the body by providing energy. Simple carbohydrates offer sugars in a quickly usable form, whereas complex carbohydrates come in a starch form, which the body converts into energy more slowly. If the body already has plenty of stored energy, usually in the form of body fat, eating too many carb-heavy foods might mean you will gain weight.
Be Selective with Sweeteners
If you typically add sweeteners to your juices or buy ready-made juices that contain sugar or other sweeteners, you'll consume additional carbohydrates in the form of sucrose or other simple sugars. Even a natural sweetener such as honey contains simple sugar as well as a small amount of vitamins and minerals. If you must use sweetener in your juice, choose an unrefined source of sugar such as sweet berries or other fruits, which will provide nutrients in addition to fructose.
Be Judicious with Juices
The type of juice you drink also largely affects your overall carbohydrate consumption. To lower your carb intake, swap out high-carbohydrate options such as cranberry or grape juice with apple juice, grapefruit juice or orange juice. As an even lower-carb alternative, drink tomato juice, which has less than one-third the carbs of grape juice. Alternately, cut your usual juice with lemon juice or lime juice, which are both extremely low in carbs. Avoid juices made from bananas or pears, which are both high in carbohydrates.
Related Risk Factors
If you typically mix your fruit juices with flavored seltzer or sparkling water, you may be getting additional carbs through your mixers. For the least carbs, avoid any beverages that contain high-fructose corn syrup or other sweeteners. When present in a drink as an artificial additive, fructose is often poorly absorbed, according to Jay A. Perman of the Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Likewise, fructose is typically present in apple and pear juice at a higher concentration than glucose, sometimes making absorption difficult.
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