A MEAL IN A GLASS                              

Smoothies are great and are literally as described above 'a meal in a glass'. 

Often people ask me;  "Which is better a Juice or a smoothie?"

I find answering that question is like comparing a boat to a car- which is better? They are both different because they serve different purposes.

People often ask me;  "What should I buy, a blender or a Juicer?"  I often reply;  "If you can afford it, both!"


There is a debate in the Health food community as to whether juicing is more beneficial than blending or visa versa. In my research and experience Juicing & Blending offer something equally unique that the other doesn't offer. Let's take a brief look at that. 

Blending:


Blenders blend while Juicers extract. Therefore you get more of the whole food when you blend as opposed to Juicing. Now your thinking-  "That's gotta be better right?"  Yes and no, let me explain:


Fiber 

Juicers remove the fiber while Blenders retain the fiber in the smoothie. The fiber in fruits and vegetables has the effect of making you feel fuller, in other words it adds bulk. Fiber also acts like a brush within the intestinal tract keeping things moving as well as slowing down digestion which is important when eating green leafy plants as the cellulose within those plants is hard to break down and therefore extract the nutrients hence a slower transit through the intestinal tract is better. 


However as Jay Kordich always says;  "It's the Juice of the fiber that feeds you..."  And he's right in that no fiber passes through the intestinal wall into the blood stream if it did it would kill you!  


Now when you juice you are in effect removing the fiber and therefore maximising the the nutrient value of the food while at the same time making it easier for your body to assimilate.  For example, say you took two apples two carrots and one beetroot and added them to a blender it would take you quite a while to chow through that smoothie and the absorption of the nutrition from them would take longer to become as food to the body- in other words enter into your blood stream. Whereas when you Juice them it becomes much easier for that liquid to get absorbed into the blood stream - about 15 minutes as opposed to 4 hours.


 Juicing in my mind gives you more 'bang for your buck' for example if you take a class of juice and a glass of smoothie you would have more nutrition in terms of vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients in the juice than in the smoothies- it's concentrated because the fiber has been removed it's like a glass of vodka versus a glass of vodka and coke which has more alcohol? You get the idea.


Does that mean then that Juicing in better?    No,not necessarily because science hasn't yet discovered whether there may be some yet 'unknown nutrients' in the fiber part of the vegetable or fruit, also there are some in the scientific community that  are convinced there are valuable nutrients in the fiber of  fruits and vegetables- so we may be loosing them when juicing. Also Smoothies hold you appetite longer than a juice does, which could stop you munching on something you shouldn't in between meals and  thus not loosing weight as quickly as you would like?

The top and bottom of it for me is you are best including both Juices & Smoothies in your diet if you can. 


In a nutshell;  I view juicing a bit like taking a vitamin- you get more of that particular nutrient say than food it's in- which lets face it in this modern world whereby our food in mass produced and grown in mineral depleted soils with pesticides etc we need in my opinion- hence we get a boost a 'leg up' if you like. With the smoothie on the other hand we get the whole food which in my opinion is always going to be best, why, because it's how it was designed and let's face it the more we we mess about with our food and extract and isolate things from it the more we denigrate it.  I like Jason Vales phrase-  "What we should look for in foods are low H.I foods..."  H.I  short for ' Human intervention'  the less we intervene the better!