Juices are a popular beverage to pair with breakfast foods since they improve flavour and boost nutritional value. Sugarcane juice is a popular juice that everyone enjoys drinking. Sugarcane is a great source of the essential nutrients required by the body to function properly. It has a lot of calcium, which is essential for a developing child. Due to its high nutritional content and antioxidant content, occasionally consuming sugarcane juice on an empty stomach might be healthy for the body.
According to WebMD, sugarcane juice has impressive benefits such as promoting healthy urination and kidney health, being used as a laxative, reducing inflammation, helping against overheating, acting as an antiseptic, protects against jaundice by helping the liver and is good as an all-around medicinal tonic. However, some people still hesitate to drink sugarcane juice on an empty stomach and everyday.
In a conversation with Jagran English, Pooja Shah Bhave, Consultant Clinical Dietician and Diabetes Educator, Mumbai explained if it is ok to drink sugarcane juice on an empty stomach and its pros and cons.
Pros And Cons Of Sugarcane Juice
According to Dr Bhave, sugarcane juice is a very energetic drink full of minerals and glucose. It is a delicious replenishing drink great to have in Summer. It not only quenches thirst but also provides electrolytes that can resolve dehydration especially if you are outdoors during the afternoon.
Having said this, it is also noteworthy to remember that it’s a drink full of sugars like fructose and glucose. Plus, a juice consistency means more than one sugar cane stick goes into making a big glass of sugarcane juice so the amount of carbohydrate is much higher in juice form.
There is no effort needed to chew sugarcane and the glucose from it is absorbed so rapidly that it gives a high blood sugar spike within a few minutes. Sugar cane juice should not be taken with a meal as it adds to the carbohydrate already coming from a meal giving a much higher sugar spike.
So sugarcane juice should be taken only occasionally during summer and not daily. This is regardless of age or the amount of physical activity performed by a person or however super active the person is. Especially those performing hard laborious physical activity as industry workers, construction workers should not consume sugarcane juice as a quick source of energy as already their diets are much high in bread and biscuits.
Sugarcane juice should be strictly avoided by diabetics especially when their sugars are not in control as well as those having heart conditions or obesity. The best time to take sugarcane juice by anyone is an empty stomach in between the meals with a 2-hour gap between the juice and a meal.
