Jeshurun's Mind: Health and Fitness

Juicing Vs Smoothies

Even though smoothies and fresh juices both offer nutritional benefits to your regimen, each has its pros and cons. On one hand, juicing is most suitable if you need to boost your intake of fruits and fresh vegetables.  Besides that, juicing offers you an opportunity to experiment with nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables like beets and kales that you might not normally consume or understand how to use in recipes.

Juicing avails nutrients more readily to the body and in much larger quantities than when you eat whole fruits and vegetables. If you have an illness or a sensitive digestive system that inhibits your body from processing fiber, juicing would be especially helpful. Freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices are also very healing and detoxifying, and more so for the liver.

However, since juicing strips most of the fiber content from fruits and vegetables, you need to ensure you get enough fiber intakes from other daily servings of fruits and vegetables. There being no fiber, the liquid juice becomes quickly absorbed into the blood stream. This could be hazardous especially if you are only juicing fruits as it can cause unstable blood sugar levels leading to energy loss, memory loss and mood swings among others. At the same time, juice cannot be a meal substitute because it is not a significant source of proteins. Financially, you need to invest in a good-quality juicer, which is an added expense, in order to start juicing. 

On the other hand, smoothies are the best choice when you want an on-the-go snack or meal that will provide nutrients and keep you full. With a smoothie and the right ingredients, you can comfortably and easily make a nutritious, light meal by combining vegetables and fruits with sources of proteins such as low-fat yoghurt or soy milk. When you make a smoothie, you retain fiber in vegetables and fruits. You can even include more beneficial fiber and fatty acids by adding few tablespoons of chia seeds or flax seed.

A nutritious smoothie, comprising of a mix of protein and healthy fats, vegetables and fruits will keep you full and satisfied until your next meal, thus helping you maintain or lose weight. The fiber in smoothies not only slows the absorption of sugar thus stabilizing blood sugar levels, but also helps flush and eliminate toxins from the body. An ordinary blend, and no special equipment, is enough to make smoothies. 

In the same breath however, smoothies can quickly become sugar-laden, high-fat, unhealthy liquid time bombs especially if they include sweetened yoghurt, sweetened juice, ice cream or frozen yoghurt. Due to the high fiber content, it is difficult to include as many vegetables and fruits in a smoothie as you would in a juice.