--- title: Green Juice Benefits: Are Kale Juice and Green Juice Healthy? description: 5/5 experts say yes. The tally is in, and green juice is a go, say all five of our experts. A store-bought, veggie-heavy green juice... canonical: https://time.com/3818098/green-juice-kale-healthy/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-23T14:07:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:07:50.775Z article:section: Health og:title: Should We Really Be Drinking Green Juice? og:description: 5/5 experts say yes. The tally is in, and green juice is a go, say all five of our experts. A store-bought, veggie-heavy green juice... og:url: https://time.com/3818098/green-juice-kale-healthy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49542ae5ac3f58a2/6987ec290b72e38d766e19d0/screen-shot-2015-04-21-at-4-56-03-pm.png?branch=production&width=604&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 604 og:image:height: 340 og:image:alt: screen-shot-2015-04-21-at-4-56-03-pm.png og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Should We Really Be Drinking Green Juice? twitter:description: 5/5 experts say yes. The tally is in, and green juice is a go, say all five of our experts. A store-bought, veggie-heavy green juice... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49542ae5ac3f58a2/6987ec290b72e38d766e19d0/screen-shot-2015-04-21-at-4-56-03-pm.png?branch=production&width=604&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Should You Drink Green Juice? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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[Watch (HLS stream): Should I Drink Green Juice?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/J0d2ag3D.m3u8) (1:36)  _Published 2015-04-23. Green juice can cost you $10 a bottle. But is it a trend worth buying into? All five of our experts gave green juice the go-ahead_  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Apr 23, 2015 2:07 PM UTC  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Apr 23, 2015 2:07 PM UTC **5/5 experts say yes.** The tally is in, and green juice is a go, say all five of our experts. A store-bought, veggie-heavy green juice can contain 36% of your daily recommended potassium and 20% of daily vitamin A, with 12 grams of natural sugar, no fat and 4 grams of protein. Juicing your own fresh glass will likely net even more nutrients. “Veggie juice is very healthy,” says **Barry Popkin**, PhD, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health. And way healthier, he says, than fruity concoctions like [smoothies](http://time.com/3737812/smoothies-healthy-breakfast-fruit/), which Popkin recently came down against in this very series. The main concern about juicing and blending—that pulverizing produce lets sugar rush into your bloodstream faster without fiber—isn’t a big issue with juice made from vegetables. “It is low in sugar, so quite different,” Popkin says. That’s assuming your green juice is getting most of its color from vegetables, not fruit juice plus a pinch of kale, says **Dr. Lydia Bazzano**, a physician and director of the Center for Lifespan Epidemiology Research at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Her [research](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2453647/) on fruit and vegetables juices found that vegetables—especially the green leafy kind—were linked to less risk of developing diabetes. Drinking fruit juice, on the other hand, was associated with more of a risk of developing diabetes. Green juice might help improve cholesterol, too. One small [study](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18548846) gave 32 men with high cholesterol a little less than a cup of kale juice every day for three months and found that for non-smokers, the HDL- to LDL-cholesterol ratio improved by 52%, and selenium levels went up. But don’t drink too much of a good thing, warns **Kristi King**, senior clinical dietitian at Texas Children’s Hospital. “It should be used as part of an overall, well-balanced diet and not for ‘cleanses’ or ‘detoxes,’ as that is what we have kidneys and livers in our bodies for,” she says. Speaking of kidneys, people with kidney disease or kidney stones should be wary of juicing, says **Dr. Mary Jo Kasten**, assistant professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic. Kasten wrote an [article](http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343%2813%2900344-6/abstract) about a patient with kidney disease who experienced kidney failure after a six-week juice fast. Certain foods—like beets and spinach and even [iced tea](http://time.com/3768205/iced-tea-habit-kidney-failure/), the culprit behind a recent case of kidney failure—are rich sources of oxalate, a natural compound that can increase kidney stones and kidney damage in people with diseased kidneys. But juicing is fine for most people, Kasten says. Most of us, of course, aren’t anywhere close to overdosing on vegetables; according to the [USDA](http://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2014-may/healthy-vegetables-undermined-by-the-company-they-keep.aspx#.VSg-CZTF-Tf), the average American eats just half of the recommended amount of vegetables every day, and only 10% of what we do get down is dark green. “It is better to eat than to drink veggies and fruits,” says **Dr. David Katz**, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center. “But it is better to drink them than not to have them at all.”  Illustration by Lon Tweeten for TIME [_Read Next: Should I Drink Coconut Water?_](http://time.com/3559621/coconut-water-nutrition/) ## Transcript Green juice can cost you $ 10 a bottle, but is it a trend worth really buying into? Five out of five of our experts give green juice the go ahead. The store bought kind has about 36 % of your daily recommended potassium, 20 % of your daily vitamin A 12 grams of natural sugar and four grams of protein. If you juice your own glass you'll likely get even more vitamins. Barry Popkin says that veggie juice is really healthy for you and a lot better for you than fruity concoctions like smoothies. A big concern about juicing is that it gets rid of most of the fiber which lets sugar rush into your bloodstream faster. But Popkin says that because vegetables are so low in sugar, that's not a big issue. Lydia Pisano has researched green leafy vegetables. And finds that they're linked to a lower risk of developing diabetes. Green juice is fine as long as part of your overall well balanced diet. But don't go on an all green juice Cleanse. That's what we have our kidneys and livers for, says Kristi King. Mary Jo Kasten warns that you should be careful with green juice if you have a kidney. Foods like spinach are a rich source of oxalate, which can contribute to kidney stones, but for most people, juicing is just fine. Most of us, of course, aren't anywhere close to overdosing on vegetables. And only 10 % of what we do get down is dark green. It's better to eat your vegetables rather than drink them, says David Katz, but if green juice is what it takes to get your veggie fix, then bottoms up. [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3818098/green-juice-kale-healthy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3818098/green-juice-kale-healthy/"},"headline":"Should You Drink Green Juice?","datePublished":"2015-04-23T14:07:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-01T09:07:50.775Z","description":"5/5 experts say yes. The tally is in, and green juice is a go, say all five of our experts. 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