What is the Better Way Juicing or Blending?
|What is the Better Way Juicing or Blending?
A common question that is often asked is what is better? Juicing or blending?
People often ask whether juicing offers more health benefits, or whether blending is the way to go. First of all, let’s take a look at the differences between the two.
When you juice fruits and vegetables, you’re essentially extracting the water and the nutrients and leaving the pulp behind. Conversely, blenders pulverize the entire fruit and vegetable and instead of making juice, you get what is called a smoothie.
There are many health benefits to both juicing and blending, thanks to all the vitamins, phytonutrients and minerals, you’re getting everything you need for a healthier you. T
The main difference is that the pulp contains insoluble fiber, which is missing from the juice because the pulp is removed.
Insoluble Fiber
Insoluble fiber is mainly found in whole wheat, brown rice and in the seeds and skins of fruit. It digests slowly and so results in a slower and more sustained release of nutrients.
Health Benefits Of Insoluble Fiber:
- Supports weight loss as it keeps you full longer so you eat less without being hungry
- Supports healthy digestion, and prevents bowel problems
- People often drink a smoothie before a workout to give them a slow and sustained energy drip because the insoluble fiber digests slower than the soluble fiber found in juices
Soluble Fiber
While there is no insoluble fiber in juice, you are still getting a lot of soluble fiber. Soluble fiber attracts water and turns to gel during the digestive process, and causes slower digestion, it is found in apples, blueberries, other fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds and oat bran, and it is the main ingredient in psyllium fiber supplements.
Soluble fiber absorbs quickly and easily, allowing you to get 100% of key vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants from juiced fruits and vegetables.
Health Benefits Of Soluble Fiber
- Helps keep cholesterol levels healthy and protects the heart.
- Bulks up the stool to support healthy digestion and prevent common ailments, such as diarrhea and constipation and diarrhea. This is why fiber supplements are made mostly from soluble fiber.
- Maintains healthy blood sugar levels to avoid blood sugar spikes that pose a risk for type 2 diabetes and can help those already diagnosed to manage the condition.
- Soluble fiber supports weight loss as it can keep you full longer, while keeping your calorie counts down, especially when its source is fruits and vegetables.
- Older people and those with digestive disorders can benefit from juicing and eliminate the hard to digest insoluble fiber found in juiced or whole fruits and vegetables.
Which Is Better: Juicing or Blending?
The answer is both are great! You don’t have to choose because blending complements juicing, and vice versa and either one can help fill the nutritional gaps of the other.
- Juicing vegetables allows you to get a plethora of key nutrients without the bulk of the insoluble fiber for pure liquid nutrition.
- Blending and juicing together allows you to make a variety of tasty blends, for example, strawberries don’t juice very well, but kale, and spinach does. Therefore, you make your vegetable juice, and then stir in the blended strawberries, and you get the best of both worlds, delicious taste and complete nutrition.
- Blending is ideal for the soft produce that cannot be juiced, like avocados, and bananas.
- Blending also allows you to get the benefits of the entire fruit, as the fiber content prevents the blood sugar spikes that are seen with high sugar fruit juices.
- If you want to boost the nutritional value of your diet, juicing gives you a straight shot of nutrition any time of the day. You don’t have to spend all day deciding what fruit or vegetable to eat next - you can get all your nutrients in one go. Excellent!
- Juicing allows for an easy way to drink your nutrition, instead of having to chew on a giant plate of vegetables or drinking a thick smoothie. Juicing gives you more choices, due to the great variety of juicable fruits and vegetables.
Taking advantage of both blending and juicing is the smartest way to access the best each has to offer.
Sound nutrition is so important, but so many of us just don’t get enough. We are great at getting our macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat) but we’re not so great when it comes to getting enough micronutrients. Juicing and blending is a great way to boost our intake of micronutrients and improve our diets.
The great thing about juices and smoothies is that they allow you to get more fruit and vegetables than you otherwise would.
After all, you can only chew so much kale each day, or peel so many apples.
You get exhausted doing it. You forget to do it.
Juicing and blending makes everything so much easier and so portable.