Grape Juice

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Grape Juice is a healthy and delicious drink year round. Making your own grape juice from homegrown grapes is the best way to go, but if that's not available, the best kind to buy is Welch's grape juice.

"Grapes, like nuts, seeds, some vegetables and fruits, contain flavonoids - interesting substances that are also found in red wine and act as antioxidants. The investigators studied twelve men and three women, average age 62 years, who had known coronary heart disease. They were asked to drink Welch's 100% Concord Grapes for fourteen days - about 21 ounces or two-thirds of a quart a day. Studies were then made of the diameter of an artery in the arm and the ability of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL, so called bad cholesterol) to be oxidized, a step thought to be important for LDL to get into blood vessel walls and cause arteriosclerosis." http://healthfullife.umdnj.edu.

Grape juice contains many nutrients which are excellent in strengthening our body.

"The results showed that, after the grape juice diet, the blood vessels showed a greater ability to dilate and the LDL was more resistant to oxidation, both reactions likely to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and heart attacks." Ibid.

So drinking wine is good for me? "The authors of this study point out that the beneficial effects of red wine may not be related to the alcohol, but rather the flavonoids in the grapes used to make the red wine."

The healthy benefits of wine, in fact come from the flavonoids in the grape juice.

"The benefits of grape juice and red wine hit the brain as well as the heart." http://www.psychologytoday.com. But grape juice is better as it does the same thing without the alchohol!

"Current research, still in the early stages, suggests that the antioxidants in grape juice may also protect brain cells directly. For example, experiments at Tufts University suggest that grape juice may improve the strength, memory, and coordination of laboratory rats." Ibid.

Peter Jaret, a writer from CNN asks a question "Wine or Welch's?" And then proceeds to answer it "Grape juice provides health benefits without alchohol." We've heard for so long that wine is good for the heart, well in a way yes, because of the great nutrients in the grape juice, but the alchohol is bad for your liver!*

Jaret continues, "If you don't like wine, the latest studies show you can get almost all the same benefits from grape juice. The reason: Purple grape juice contains the same powerful disease-fighting antioxidants, called flavonoids, that are believed to give wine many of its heart-friendly benefits." You can drink grape juice at any time, and enjoy its taste and benefits, plus you don't have to worry about driving! For more information on Jaret's article, please visit: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/alternative/03/31/wine.heart.wmd/.

 

*"Each time you take a drink of alcohol or use an illegal drug (like cocaine or marijuana), your liver goes to work filtering these substances out... People who drink too much or take too many drugs can do a lot of harm to their livers, sometimes to the point where the liver cannot heal." http://www.hepnet.com. If you are having liver problems, a simple thing to try would be to boil (or eat raw) dandelion root, black raddish, or milk thistle.

"A byproduct of alcohol breakdown by the liver is acetaldehyde, a toxic substance. It is, in fact, this molecule that causes impairment, not the ethanol in your drink. In high concentrations, acetaldehyde attacks the liver, the brain and the lining of the stomach. This is what causes the familiar upset stomach and heartburn." http://www.askmen.com.

"Alcohol-laden blood... affects nearly every liver cell.  The liver cells are the only cells in our body that can produce enough of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase to oxidize alcohol at an appreciable rate... Though alcohol affects every organ of the body, it’s most dramatic impact is upon the liver." http://www.healthchecksystems.com.