Both are healthy in moderation. The juice, however, I would say to be more mindful of limiting intake as it is concentrated sugar with the fiber removed. You would not sit down and eat 6 oranges, but could easily drink the juice of 6 oranges down very fast. Food in its whole form helps us feel fuller and is packed with natural fiber that slows down the absorption of sugar and gives our body time to respond to it.
My Nutirionist says I can’t eT too much fruit and encourage it. When I see her again I will ask about juice.
As the the fruit the body processes this sugar differently. So I am encouraged to eat fruit or blend it in a smoothy with protein powder.
Something that rarely get’s discussed is how fiber structure is so important for it to serve its purpose correctly. If you look at a fruit, it is basically a mesh of fiber full of water and all the fructose and nutrients that come along with it. The fact that it is a mesh means it is fully surrounding all the contents of the fruit, this is important as the fruit goes through your intestinal tract, as fiber will prevent that fructose from being absorbed by your body and it ends up feeding your gut.
In contrast, If you juice a fruit, you are 100% destroying its fiber, so if you put it back after juicing or worse off use any of the added fibers you will see in supplement form, the encapsulation is not being performed anymore.
Now you have to also consider that the main carbohydrate in fruit is Fructose, not glucose. So your main concern here is not the rise in blood sugar levels, but the overload you are giving to your liver when over consuming fructose. As other commenter said, if you try hard to eat a lot of oranges, you will most likely eat 3 and stop there; but with juice, you can easily chug 2-3 cups which can amount to 18+ oranges… if you do the math, some orange juice contains more carbs(fructose) than your average soda, effectively making it worse.
My answer to OPs original question is 3.5, fruit is healthy for most individuals, but if you are already sick with insulin resistance (which is pretty much never diagnosed) or already diagnosed with T2D, then you should avoid the sweetest forms of fruit. Fruit juice is to be avoided by all, it should be something very occasional for those with great metabolic health.
The only thing is that drinking juice makes the process of extracting glucose more fast, which means it spikes your blood sugar.
What I go with is that juice for me is a treat and I don’t count it with my daily servings of fruit
You should have done a poll. But the answer is 3. If you blend fruit the fiber is still there but’s it’s disturbed and you still get high insulin spikes.
So just eat your fruit whole. I think the exceptions to this are bananas and berries, which are fine to blend.