Experts consider smoothies to be better for you than juices because they offer more nutrients and packed with fiber and vitamins. When making smoothies, we have not removed the skin of the vegetables and fruits used.
Smoothie can act as a meal, drink it as a snack, especially when a variety of different vegetables and fruits have been used to provide you with more phytochemicals, minerals, and nutrients than a juice.
Smoothies have become increasingly popular, they now offer healthy options for breakfast, snacks, and post-workout drinks. But these drinks are complicated, and ensuring you’re consuming a healthy one is not as straightforward as you might think.
Experts will tell you that smoothies are excellent for fasting and cleansing, others will tell you if you are not careful they can contain as much sugar as a soda. It’s true that some smoothies often have a high-calorie level, but this can easily be controlled by being careful about what you put into them.
In this article, we will explore whether juices or smoothies are better for you. We will discuss some pros and cons of both and finally, we will discuss the importance of understanding how our body absorbs nutrients, which will help you create the perfect smoothies.
Which is Better for Weight loss?
It’s impossible to state whether juices or smoothies are better for weight loss without knowing exactly what ingredients were used to make them. One thing we are aware of is that we can pack both with a wide variety of healthy ingredients.
However, smoothies can occasionally contain some hidden surprises such as ice cream and chocolate. Research has shown that even small servings of these unhealthy smoothies can contain over 900 calories. When compared to fruit juice, a standard 16 oz cup will usually only have 300 calories.
While neither appears to offer an extremely healthy calorie count, it’s important when you are preparing a smoothie you know exactly what it contains. Smoothies prepared from purely healthy ingredients are better for weight loss.
Which Has Less Sugar?
Sugar contents of juices and smoothies can also vary depending on ingredients. Although both have stellar reputations for being healthy drinks.
Research shows that some juices can contain 72g of sugar. While smoothies if they contain healthier ingredients will usually be lower in sugar. If you’re not careful, you could easily consume a lemonade or a sorbet type ingredient hidden in your smoothie.
Unhealthy ingredients can easily clock up 70g of sugar too. Stick with green smoothies and your risk of high sugar content is much lower.
Which Has More Fiber?
There’s only one winner, smoothies once created with the right ingredients offer you a much higher fiber count than a juice ever will.
Some juices are virtually fiber-free, whereas including frozen peas, beans, flax seeds, chia seeds, blended oats and other types of ingredients in your smoothie can offer you a huge fiber kick.
Which Has More Vitamins and Minerals?
Both smoothies and juices will offer you a significant mineral and vitamin bump, but in the grander scheme of things, smoothies have an edge.
Sadly, not all juices are the same, for example, a freshly squeezed glass of orange juice will provide you with over three times your recommended daily dosage of Vitamin C and 20% of your potassium. Compare this to a glass of apple juice which offers virtually no Vitamin C but provides you with 50% of your potassium needs.
When you compare these two most popular juices with any smoothie because smoothies are usually made from multiple ingredients they can be designed in a fashion to maximize the number of vitamins and minerals that you receive.
For example, you can include calcium from a dairy product, vitamin e from avocados, vitamin C from berries, and created on a base of mangoes to give you vitamin A.
Which Has More Protein?
Obviously adding vegetables or fruits such as carrots, oranges, and apples to either juices or smoothies will provide you with negligible amounts of protein. Smoothies offer you a much better opportunity to provide yourself with an additional healthy dose of protein by including protein powders, milk, Greek yogurt, or other types of ingredients.
Different nut kinds of butter can also be added to smoothies to provide you with another source of protein, but remember that these also contain fats and other calories. Experts recommend that you blend some cottage cheese, ricotta, or silken tofu to provide yourself with a healthy source of protein.
As you can see, both smoothies and juices offer significant benefits of adding a healthy dose of vitamins and minerals to your diet. But when comparing overall nutritional benefits, smoothies provide you with a better source of minerals, vitamins, protein, and fiber. This comes down to a greater ability to control portion size and to add healthier ingredients.
Experts advise that you avoid your local smoothie bars. Some have a tendency to stuff their products with what we can only consider filers, some of which are downright unhealthy. Start making smoothies from home to ensure you only consume healthy ingredients.
What are the Pros and Cons of Blending Smoothies?
Positives of blended smoothies include the ability to control what you consume and how much you consume. As you see above, the healthiness of a smoothie will depend completely on your ingredient list.
Smoothies that combine both vegetables and fruits would provide you with higher fiber content and also offer you the opportunity to add some protein including nut butter, yogurt, or milk.
Pros of Blending Smoothies:
Smoothies are cheap
The vast majority of homeowners already have blenders, meaning you don’t have to purchase one. However, if you want to get a new blender, you can pick a perfectly functional one for less than $50. (Here’s a guide about how to make a smoothie with a cheap blender)
Better sources of nutrients and fiber
That you can include virtually complete vegetable or fruit in your smoothie, including stems, cores, peels, and rinds helps provide you with a drink that is packed with fiber and other nutrients. Many of these ingredients will help you keep your body free of toxins by supporting a healthy digestive system. Besides the positives of extra fiber, you still receive all the benefits of a juice.
Add any healthy ingredients you want
The thing I like most about making smoothies is the fact that I can get creative. Add any vegetables, fruits, and ingredients such as almond milk, soy milk, and Greek yogurt I like.
It allows me to create smoothies to meet my needs and my taste. If I’m looking for something more substantial, I can add some rolled oats or even a scoop of peanut butter. The ability to turn my smoothie into a filling healthy meal is one of the principal reasons that I find them attractive.
Full of Antioxidants
Smoothies contain a higher level of antioxidants, primarily because they contain these in the core peel and the fibrous portions of fruits and vegetables. To make the vast majority of juices, we remove this part of the vegetable or fruit, meaning you don’t receive the benefits.
With smoothies, you receive the maximum amount of antioxidants and nutrients in all the fruits and vegetables you include in your ingredients.
Cons of Blending Smoothies
High-Calorie count
If you’re not careful with the ingredients, you include in your smoothie or where you buy your smoothie; you risk the potential for calorie overload.
We make some smoothies with avocados flavored soy kinds of milk, peanut butter, Greek yogurt, and oats, all of which can quickly escalate your calorie intake. So be careful and monitor your portion size and ingredients closely.
Potential for sugar overload
Similar to the calorie problem listed above, if you’re not careful with where you purchase your smoothie or what ingredients you include, these can easily combine to create a smoothie that’s overloaded with sugar.When you’re not removing any of the sugars found in the vegetables or fruits, the sugar content of your smoothie can quickly skyrocket, so be careful with the ingredients you include.
Pros and Cons of Juicing
To create juice, vegetables and fruits are chopped and spun using a centrifugal juicer or ground using a masticating juicer this creates the juice at a smaller speed and removes the pulp.
If you’re looking to extract juice from leafy greens such as spinach and kale, you will need to purchase a more expensive masticating juicer. However, it doesn’t really matter which type of juicer you used to provide yourself with a juice that is nutrient-rich.
What are the Pros of Juicing?
Easy to make and consume
By stripping away the pulp and other fibrous content of vegetables and fruits, and just leaving liquid, you produce a product that can quickly and easily be consumed.
Besides the liquid, the removal of the fiber means that the vitamins and minerals can be quickly digested.
Great way to boost your vegetable intake
It’s not unusual for some people to avoid vegetables as they simply don’t enjoy consuming them. Making juices is a great way to add vegetables to your diet.
By combining apples and other sweetener fruits with carrots, cucumber, and spinach you get all the benefits of vegetables with the taste of a fruit
Add lots of content
When making juice, you can pack a wide variety of different vegetables and fruits into one product. Because the pope is removed up to 2 lb of physical products can be packed into a single glass of juice.
This can help you maximize your nutritional intake and mix and matching healthy vegetables and fruits.
Control your calorie intake
If you’re looking to control your calorie intake, making fresh juices that contain only vegetables and fruits will help you remain safely under control. To avoid adding yogurts or kinds of milk traditional flavor, you can really count exactly the calories you’re consuming.
What are the Cons of Juicing?
It’s expensive
Every aspect of juicing is expensive, from the machinery that can cost you up to $400, to the fact that you’re consuming vast amounts of produce.
Fresh healthy vegetables on fruits while not expensive per se can quickly increase your grocery bill when you’re only consuming the juice of the fruits and vegetables you purchase and not the pulp.
Time-consuming
There’s no denying that you think it can be a hassle from cleaning the juicer, the time to process, and then actually juicing all of which will leave you with a glass of juice. For many people, the time required just isn’t worth it.
Loss of Fiber
The concept behind juicing is to allow you to quickly absorb the other nutrients by removing the fiber. However, I think this is a double-edged sword as fiber is vital to your overall health, and removing completely this counterintuitive.
Not a healthy alternative to a balanced meal
Despite what some people may tell you, experts are clear that juices are not an adequate meal replacement because we effectively make them from sugar and water, and other nutrients nothing in them is going to keep you feeling full. Many people end up feeling hungry quickly after drinking a juice and end up consuming additional calories.
Important Things You Need to Know About Smoothies and Juices
The biggest danger attached to making smoothies is that you can easily pack them full of high calorie produce, such as frozen fruits, honey, almond milk, yogurt, and ice cream. Because of this, you can significantly increase your sugar intake daily and cause fightable blood sugar spikes.
There’s no denying that smoothies are extremely nutritious, and aim to make a healthy blend of proteins, fat vegetables, and fruits. When you make a smoothie correctly, they can help you maintain or lose weight by offering you a satisfying sense of fullness until your next meal.
The largest negative of juicing, especially when compared to smoothies, is the fact that you lose virtually all the fiber content of the fruits and vegetables. Medical experts show that we should consume on average at least 25 grams of fiber and this can vary depending on your age and gender.
Unfortunately, Americans on average consume only 15 g of fiber in a day, juices are really unhealthy addiction to draw already reduced fiber diets. If you are insistent on drinking juices, you’re going to have to find a healthy fiber alternative to add to your diet. Juicing is not a healthy meal replacement they do not provide you with fiber or any level of proteins.
Why Understanding How Our Bodies Absorb Nutrients is Important?
Discussing the pros and cons of smoothies and juices is primarily a discussion of how our bodies absorb nutrients, the hows and whys either juices and smoothies can help with this process
When you pick up an apple and eat it, you’re consuming the flesh and the peel of the fruit, absorbing the fiber, minerals, and vitamins inside. Because you have to chew the fruit, this forces your body to assimilate it digestive and break it down.
When you create a smoothie from the apple, you’re consuming the seed’s core flesh and peel of the apple. Allowing you to consume the nutrients in fiber and marginally sped up rate.
Because you get to skip the chewing of the apple, you can assimilate the food quickly, breaking it down and digesting it faster than you would by eating traditionally. However, because you have not removed the fiber, it still takes a little time before the nutrients are available.
If you juice the apple it quickly separates the nutrients in the water from the fiber providing a product your body can quickly assimilate and digest. It passes quickly from your stomach to your small intestine and allows the nutrients to be absorbed.
This capability to quickly transfer micronutrients is beneficial, however, this is counterbalanced by the fact you’re losing flavonoids, carotenoids, and fiber that are contained in the rest of the apple. Smoothies offer you a balance between eating traditionally and juicing, allowing you to absorb the total nutrients of the fruit and vegetables but at a slightly sped up rate.
Final thoughts
Before you run out and buy yourself a new blender and spend lots of money buying fresh products, we recommend that you make a smoothie plan. Remember that these blenders require some maintenance and regular cleaning.
So are you ready to set this time aside to ensure your machine can be used whenever you need it? Are you and others in your household willing to sacrifice significant amounts of space in your refrigerator to help you store your vegetables and fruits?
Keep them fresh for whenever you need them for your smoothie. If you’re not, you can gravitate towards using frozen vegetables and fruits as these are easier to incorporate into a healthy smoothie. As smoothies offer significant benefits, especially when compared to juicing.