Today, people give utmost importance to their health. From diets to workouts, they pay close heed to all facets. Fitness enthusiasts make healthy choices and include them in their daily regimen. Smoothies are a special mention here. Made from pure veggies and raw fruit, they provide essential nutrients in a crushed manner. However, dieters want to know – Does smoothie destroy fiber and nutrients.
People often confuse blending with juicing. There’s a world of difference between the two processes. Unlike juicing, blending doesn’t extract water and nutrients from veggies or fruits. On the contrary, it crushes the ingredients without impacting nutrients much.
Does Making a Smoothie Destroy Nutrients?
Fitness fanatics often wonder – Does smoothie destroy nutrients present in veggies and fruits? Their concerns stand vindicated in the wake of juicing – a process wherein essential nutrients get largely affected. So, dieters often wish to know whether they should eat raw ingredients or go for smoothies.
Firstly, blending, as stated above, is different from juicing. The water and nutrient content aren’t essentially extracted. Instead, the ingredients get grind into small pieces for consumption. However, neither the fiber nor the nutrients are largely affected during the process. How?
Blending breaks down the fibers within the ingredients and releases the nutrients. The processing cycle changes the food’s appearance and texture by converting them into a more liquid form. Users can consume more fruits or veggies as a result. However, making a smoothie doesn’t lead to a total loss of nutrients.
Instead, you get an opportunity to add more amounts of ingredients to your daily food plate. Here, a group of dieters believes that they might lose all essential nutrients through blending. However, their fears are myths and based on the wrong assumption.
Nutrients are compounds present in foods, necessary for life and health. They provide you with the much-needed energy. It’s the energy that keeps you busy and occupied for physical and mental activities. When your energy levels get exhausted, you feel tired and bored. To do away with this problem, you must add more nutrients to your food plate.
The downside is you just can’t increase your food portion instantly. It’s here making smoothies turns beneficial. When you blend veggies and fruits, the content of the food doesn’t hurt. Instead, it transforms into a crushed form. You, as a dieter, can now consume more nutrients in a liquid form.
For example, you may eat at the most two bananas and two apples a day. The nutritional value remains the same as long as you intake an equal number of fruits each day. What if you want to increase the nutrient content for one or the other reason? Making smoothies comes in handy to increase your fruit and veggies consumption.
You add more nutrients to your system by crushing raw food. The increase in the amount of nutrient content gives more energy to your body and mind. In a nutshell, preparing a smoothie doesn’t affect the quality of nutrients. On the contrary, it lets you increase the nutrient quantity (overall nutritional value) for betterment.
What About the Nutrients Lost Due to Heat?
Some enthusiasts worry – Does smoothie destroy nutrients due to heat? Well, preparing smoothies may result in nutrient loss by the blender’s blades. Heat impacts nutritional value. Frying, microwaving, and normal cooking destroys nutritional content. So, cooks and diet fanatics assume that making smoothies will also give similar results.
However, there’s a huge difference between blending and cooking. For instance, cooking, frying, and microwaving involve plenty of time. Also, these processes require immense heat to deliver the desired output. So, the chances of nutrient loss stand higher.
Making smoothies, on the other hand, involves blending. The process lasts for less than a minute. So, the likelihood of heat generation is less. Plus, minimal heat gets generated during the process. Even though your smoothies might lose some nutritional value, it won’t make that much difference.
What About The Oxidation of Nutrients in Veggies and Fruits?
Some experts claim that making fruit or vegetable smoothies can cause 90 percent nutrient loss. They base their calculations on the oxidation process that occurs during the blending cycle. Air gets stuck into your blender during the process. When broken during the blending process, nutrients easily oxidize with air, leading to low nutritional values. This is a common problem for smoothie consumers which we covered in the article – How to prevent smoothies from turning brown?
The truth:
Any ingredient loses nutrients the moment it’s plucked from the plant. So, whatever items you buy from your supermarket lacks nutrients in some quantity. Also, removing the skin of raw food leads to nutrient loss because air gets into the item and oxidizes with the content.
You can’t keep air from hitting your veggies or fruits when preparing smoothies. However, you can minimize the effects of oxidation. Firstly, limit the time spent on blending. The more time used for making smoothies, the more the nutrient loss will be. So, keep this fact in mind and reduce the blending time.
Crush the ingredients for no more than 1 minute. Additionally, use a powerful blender that gives quick results. That way, you can cut down the processing time. A shorter crushing period retains more nutritional value than otherwise.
Some folks prepare smoothies at night and drink them in the morning. They believe that such drinks are breakfast meals. However, that’s far from reality. You can consume smoothies at any time of the day. People who prepare smoothies for the next morning jeopardize the nutrient content of their drinks.
Ready-to-consume smoothies oxidize with air and lose nutrients. If you keep the drink for hours, it’ll lose its nutritional value in substantial quantity. To avoid such a scenario, prepare the drink when you want to consume it. In other words, drink the smoothies right away when you prepare them.
Be careful when washing the ingredients. Never soak peeled or cut pieces of items unless you want to use the soaking liquid for blending. The more cautious you’re, the better the preservation of nutrients.
Does Blending a Smoothie Destroy Vitamins and Minerals?
Minerals and vitamins have an important role in fitness and health. Some vitamins improve your eyesight, whereas others enrich your immunity system. Minerals, on the other hand, keep you filling and boost your body metabolism to work faster. For these reasons, experts endorse the consumption of vitamins and minerals.
Following the recommendations, diet and fitness fanatics try to include essential minerals and vitamins in their diet. For that, they increase the intake of cereals and whole grains, certain veggies, and fruits. These ingredients contain vitamin A, B, C, and minerals such as zinc, magnesium, and iron. However, cereals, whole grains, and veggies make you full quickly.
What if you need particular vitamins and minerals in more quantity? If that’s the case, making a smoothie of vitamin and mineral-rich items should be your choice. Without making you full, smoothies will let you consume the required amount of minerals and/vitamins.
However, the major concern is the loss of nutritional value due to blending. People fear that making smoothies can affect the nutrient content of the ingredients. If this holds, your desire to consume more vitamins and minerals might get impacted. You may drink more smoothies but gain less nutritional value. So, does blending a smoothie destroy nutrients completely?
Blending affects mineral nutrient partially. Minerals might lose nutritional value due to heating and oxidation. But limiting the blending time could minimize the risk of nutrient loss stemming from heat. You may turn on the blender two times for 30 seconds with a gap of 10 seconds. By doing so, you can retain most of the mineral nutrients.
As far as the loss of nutrients due to oxidation is concerned, proper care should pay off. Firstly, buy fresh veggies and fruits. The fresher the ingredients, the higher their nutritional values are. So, even if you lose some nutrients due to heat, you still enjoy more nutrients.
In addition to this, drink the smoothie the moment you make it. In simple words, prepare the smoothie when you’re all set to drink it. That way, you’ll keep minerals from oxidation. The more caution you demonstrate, the more nutrients you’ll enjoy. It’s that simple.
What About Soluble Vitamins?
Vitamin A, B, and C significantly impact your capacity to work and endure. The higher the intake of these vitamins, the better the fitness will be. Keeping this point in mind, fitness fanatics include fruits, veggies, and cereals rich in vitamins. However, they fail to derive the required nutritional value despite taking the desired vitamin-rich ingredients. Why?
People usually wash their items before making a smoothie. Although advisable, washing can keep you from enjoying vitamins B and C. The reason – These vitamins are water-soluble. If you wash your ingredients, essential vitamins might get dissolved in water. When you drain the water away, you lose enough vitamin nutrients.
So, is there a way to resolve this problem? Yes! Firstly, see to it that you clean the dirt using a cloth. After effective cleaning, wash the ingredients in water. However, see to it that you use the same water in blending. That should retain most of the vitamins. While some vitamins may get lost due to heat and oxidation, they won’t make a major difference in your final nutritional value.
Does Blending Smoothies Destroy Fiber?
Fiber rules the health arena, but it isn’t a single nutrient. Instead, it’s a whole lot of related compounds that offer similar functions. Like starches and sugars, fiber is made of carbohydrate molecules. However, carbohydrate fiber doesn’t dissolve in your body.
Dietary fiber provides instant energy for digestion and other chores. Fiber also enhances the flow of blood within your body to get rid of toxins and unwanted fat. Not just that, fiber keeps you healthy by enriching your immunity system.
Modern individuals understand this fact and try to add fiber in enough quantity to their food plate. Juicing and blending offers a better option to consume more fiber. However, juicing destroys most of the fiber nutrients. Smoothies preserve most of the fiber content of the ingredients.
Despite this fact, some fiber content gets lost during the blending process. Some fiber-rich ingredients are water-soluble. Then other items are insoluble. Soluble items are likely to lose nutrients much faster. The situation could be worse if you throw the water used for washing fiber-rich ingredients. Your drive to consume more fiber for better health and fitness could go to waste.
Does Smoothie Destroy Fiber Due to Oxidation and Heat?
Heat and oxidation can impact the nutritional value of veggies and fruits you use for making smoothies. Yet, there are ways to hold most of the fiber nutrients in your drinks. Note that blending just chops the fiber and other content into smaller pieces.
That’s actually not a problem. When you chew fruits and veggies, you do the same activity as the blender does. You break down nutrients into smaller pieces. So, the question of the loss of fiber and other nutrients doesn’t arise. However, heat and oxidation can be an issue. Blending triggers mild heat that can cause fiber loss. At the same time, the exposure of ingredients may cause the fiber to oxidize with air.
Resolving these issues is a no-brainer. All you should do is exercise a little bit of caution and diligence. First, don’t use peeled or cut ingredients for smoothies. Second, use a cloth to clean dirt and dust from items. If you want to wash the ingredients, use the same water in the blending process. That way, soluble fiber will get into your drinks.
As far as oxidation and heat go, reduce the crushing time in the blender. Also, use an appliance especially meant for making smoothies. In this way, you could make the most out of the fiber nutrients you used for smoothies.
Does Blending Change the Sugar Content of the Fruit?
By this point, you know that making a smoothie impacts the nutrient content to some levels. However, with proper care and attention, you can retain most of the nutrients. But what about sugars! Do they stay in the same quantity? There are differences of opinion on this matter.
Some experts think that sugar content remains the same. On the other hand, most fitness fanatics believe that the sugar level changes, depending on how you blend and consume the final output. Let’s understand whether sugar gets impacted after blending or not.
When you blend fruits, the natural sugars present in the cell walls get released. They become free sugars that anyone would prefer to cut them down. You may argue that chewing also crushes the items into pieces. So, the natural chewing process could also release sugar just like blending. Well, there’s a big difference between blending and chewing.
When you chew the food, it breaks into pieces and mixes with your saliva. Saliva adds to the process of breakdown. Sugar gets released slowly when it reaches your bloodstream. The result is controlled body sugar. On the flip side, the quality of sugar content gets compromised due to blending. Despite this fact, sugars released during blending are much safer than free sugars you find in the market.
Yet, blending compromises sugar intakes. For instance, if you eat five raw apples, it won’t negatively impact your health. However, a smoothie made from the same five apples will have free sugars, which you should avoid. So, how do you do that? Should you stay away from smoothies? Well, that’s not the solution. Smoothies should be on your checklist when it comes to a health plan.
You may balance the sugar content by mixing fruits with veggies. Veggies contain sugars in limited quantities. Additionally, go for a thicker drink. See to it that the final output is pulpy instead of juicy. If you can manage to do that, you can cut down the sugar intake. No matter whether you prefer pure fruit smoothies or a mix, the amount of sugar remains the same. Only the levels of free sugars keep changing. So, make sure you’ve minimum free sugars in your smoothies.
Blending VS Eating Whole Food
Folks who’re very particular about nutritional values and sugar intakes often endorse the consumption of whole food. They assert that eating raw veggies and fruits is a much better option. The statement holds outwardly. Blended fruits aren’t nutritionally equivalent to whole fruits. However, your food plate may lack all the fruit nutrients.
For example, you can’t eat five to ten fruits in the raw state regularly. However, all those items might be essential, depending on your health condition. So, a raw intake fails to fulfill your diet commitment. Savoring smoothies fills this gap but may impact the nutrient content.
You might consume more fruits, but the output will lack the total nutritional value. So, is there a solution? Yes, have an eating plan that includes raw food and smoothies. Don’t eat raw food and smoothies simultaneously. Instead, drink smoothies in the morning and have raw ingredients at night. By doing so, you can maximize the nutrient content.
Bottom line
Smoothies can do wonders for your health, provided you take due care during the preparation process. Follow the above advice meticulously. Also, have raw food and drinks in your diet plan. If you do that, you won’t have to worry – does smoothie destroy fiber, or does smoothie destroy nutrients.