About Citrus Fruits and Fruit Juices for Cardiovascular Health

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Practicing Kundalini and Qi Gong under God will help keep blood vessels healthy and unclogged.  This health effect is noticeably beneficial for high-energy level practitioners.

 

In addition, consuming some citrus fruits and/or citrus fruit juices can be quite helpful for people to maintain healthy blood vessels.  Most citrus fruits and their juices contain citrus bioflavonoids.   Citrus bioflavonoids can improve health by helping to counteract the possible build-up of fatty and cholesterol deposits that can partially clog blood vessels (atherosclerosis).

 

Consuming whole fruits is very good for getting the whole nutritional value from fruit.  Whole fruit has both fruit sugars and fruit starches.  Whole fruit also includes some solid plant material that gives structure that is usually helpful for digestion for people in good health.  Fruit juice has almost all of the fruit sugars and usually only a portion of the fruit starches.   Some other valuable nutrients such as citrus bioflavonoids are in fruit juice, but the whole citrus fruit contains more bioflavonoids. 

 

By consuming whole fruit, a person consumes both fruit sugars and fruit starches.  This provides a more steady source of physical energy over time compared to consuming fruit juice which has mainly fruit sugars.

 

When having fruit juice, orange juice is one recommended citrus juice having citrus bioflavonoids.   One to two 8 oz (240 ml) cups of orange juice daily is a helpful amount. Consuming some orange juice two times per day is more helpful for health than drinking the total daily orange juice amount in one larger serving per day. 

    

When eating oranges, a medium-sized orange can substitute for about 6 oz (180 ml) of orange juice, and a large orange can substitute for about 8+ oz (240+ ml) of orange juice.  But part of a whole orange’s carbohydrates are fruit starches, so the amount of sugar in one whole large orange is lower than in 8 oz of orange juice. 

 

About other citrus fruits and juices that can be helpful:

• Grapefruit fruit and juice has a little less citrus bioflavonoids per ounce than oranges and orange juice.   However, grapefruit and grapefruit juice is not compatible with some prescription medicines.

 

• Tangerines and tangerine juice has somewhat less citrus bioflavonoids per ounce than oranges and orange juice.

 

• Lemons and limes and their juices have some citrus bioflavonoids.  Lemon juice and lime juice are usually consumed in considerably smaller quantities because these juices are often diluted in lemonade, limeade, or iced tea drinks.

 

• Eating lemons and drinking lemon juice at full-strength should be avoided because the juice is acidic enough to cause erosion of tooth enamel.

 

Too much fructose sugar from fruit and fruit juice can increase triglyceride levels in the blood by providing more than optimum amounts of fructose sugar.   This is not optimal for cardiovascular health.  More than two 8 oz (240 ml) cups of orange juice per day or its equivalent can be too much for some people. 

 

When estimating daily fructose sugar intake, one should also count the fructose sugar from non-orange juice sources such as whole fruit or other juices.  In addition, regular soda drinks and some other drinks and foods contain high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener. 

 

Consuming one or two 8 oz cups of orange juice plus a moderate amount of whole fruits is helpful for cardiovascular health.   One should also keep control of the total fructose sugar consumed per day.

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