Is fruit juice better for you than soda? That’s a question that nutritional biologist Kimber Stanhope of the University of California, Davis says she’s asked all the time.

"And it drives me crazy that I don’t know the answer for sure. I haven’t found any studies in the scientific literature that have actually compared the consumption of a sugar sweetened beverage compared to a fruit juice sweetened beverage for one day."

So, Stanhope intends to do a two-week pilot study comparing the two. And she says it’s important that this study get done because many scientists have made the assumption that fruit juice is just as bad as sucrose because the fiber is removed. There’s also some evidence supporting that fruit juice is protective against risk factors for metabolic disease.

"There’s also a couple of studies that suggest they’re just as bad, so I’m really looking forward to getting some preliminary data to answer this question."