If you’re not consuming between five and nine servings of different fruits and vegetables daily then you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Well, that’s what the food scientists would have us believe, anyway.
Most folks don’t get anywhere near this amount of intake of fruits and vegetables.
It’s not necessarily easy to achieve.
You have to make time to shop for all of those fruits and vegetables. Then you have to prepare and cook the vegetables, too.
Very likely you don’t have the time – or the energy.
But you likely do have the time and energy to juice each day.
Over the prior five years or so, juicing has become extremely popular.
Folks say that because of their recent juicing habits, they have lost weight, they feel more healthy, they have far more energy…
And it’s an appealing concept.
When you juice often, you get the full compliment that fruit and vegetables offer. Well, you do get all the vitamins and all the minerals.
It’s quick to juice and it’s easy to juice, isn’t it?
You don’t have to count out portion sizes. You don’t have to track much, or anything. You don’t have to cook anything.
So, what about the advantages of juicing? Is it all it’s cracked up to be?
What about the disadvantages? Are there disadvantages of juicing?
Let’s find out now.
Advantages of Juicing
1 Juicing helps you to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables you consume on a daily basis.
You may not have a desire to eat a bunch of brussels sprouts because you find them nauseating, to say the least. You might freak at the thought of eating cabbage.
If that is you, and you still want to get your compliment of vegetables, juicing might be a solution.
What’s more, if you lack the time to prepare and cook your vegetables on a regular basis, again, it’s juicing to the rescue.
You can juice (blend) pretty much anything these days (even a cell phone – check the video below).
For the widest combination of vitamins and minerals, go for a good variety of colors in your fruit and vegetable choices.
2 When you juice, you get a high concentration of goodies.
This is a serious benefit you get from juicing: You get a highly concentrated format of vitamins and minerals all from a single juice.
And what could be better news if you’re picky when it comes to vegetable eating and yet you really do want to get your daily dose of nutrients every day without having to resort to pills.
3 Juicing helps your body to absorb the vitamins and minerals better.
Juicing vegetables and/ or fruit means that you can start out your day having had a full compliment of vitamins and minerals all in one sitting.
Juicing means that you get a high concentration of easily absorbed goodness. In turn, this provides you with a burst of energy on an almost instantaneous basis.
For many of us, we regularly suffer from digesting problems.
And vegetables can definitely be a big part of that digestion problem.
What would you rather do: Consume something that you know full well is good for you even though you also know that you’re very likely going to suffer with indigestion for hours afterwards, or avoid it altogether?
I think the latter would be the better alternative, right?
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
When you juice your vegetables and/ or your fruit, you can get your daily intake and there’s zero digestive problems.
That’s a win-win scenario!
What are the Disadvantages of Juicing?
1 There’s quite a bit of preparation and cleanup required when you juice.
It’s fast and it’s easy to drink the stuff, but to actually put it together – to make it – it’s not so fast and easy.
You’ve got to buy the produce first. But, then, you have to do that with anything, really.
Next, you have to clean it – or at least rinse it.
You have to cut it up.
You then have to juice it.
Finally, you need to clean up any mess, including the juicer.
All this is going to be a bit problematic if you’re on a tight schedule.
So, is there a solution?
You might be tempted to buy pre-made juices like the ones you get at grocery stores and juice bars.
But there are a couple of downsides: What’s in the juice – is it really that healthy? How much is it going to cost? Likely not cheap.
2 You get a high concentration of vitamins and minerals.
But wait! Surely this is an advantage, right? And it’s listed as an advantage, right?
Yes, getting lots of vitamins and minerals is a definite advantage.
But there are some drawbacks to it being highly concentrated.
The vitamins and the minerals in high concentrations are excellent.
But there’s a lot of sugar content to consider, too – at least with regards to fruit.
You may be thinking that it cannot be right. Fruit is as good as it gets when it comes to human health.
Sure thing. But take this, for example: Apple juice has more sugar content than Coke.
Or, if you think about eating one or two bananas at one sitting: That’s perfectly fine.
But what about if you have five or six of them at one sitting in the form of juice (or even not in the form of juice)?
You get plenty of vitamin B6 and you get a load of potassium, while you’re also getting a serious dose of sugar, and you’re also getting a bunch of calories to deal with, too.
For obvious reasons, that’s not ideal.
3 Where’s the fiber going to come from?
Fruit has a lot of fiber content, doesn’t it.
And so do vegetables. Vegetables have plenty of fiber.
Fiber helps us to feel fuller for longer. So, in essence, fiber can help us to lower our caloric intake – to lose weight.
There are other health benefits to fiber: Weight control as mentioned, it slows down the release of glucose which prevents the relatively instantaneous spikes and troughs of blood sugar levels, and it helps to lower the risks associated with chronic disease.
But because the fiber is contained in the pulp of fruit and vegetables, and because when we juice the pulp is discarded, we don’t get any fiber.
So, to get the fiber, we need to eat the leftover pulp that’s still inside the juicer. That’s not everyone’s cup of tea, to say the least.
Is There a Way to Juice the “Right” Way for Even Better Results?
Some simplistic guidelines, providing you follow them, can help you to juice in the “right” way and get better health results.
If you juice the “right” way, you maximize the advantages and diminish the disadvantages associated with juicing.
1 Like to juice using fruit? Utilize fruit with a lesser glycemic load.
You can halt the pile up of sugar when you juice with fruit by selecting fruits that are lower in sugar content.
Pears are great because they have lower sugar content than most other fruits.
Granny Smith apples are also ideal.
Then, there’s lemons, too.
2 You may wish to mainly stick with vegetables.
Again, another way to avoid lots of sugar content when juicing is to stick mainly to vegetables.
3 Smoothies as opposed to juices.
If you’re concerned that juices have little fiber content, you can opt for smoothies instead, or in addition to.
Smoothies, because they utilize the entire fruit/ vegetable content, are packed with fiber.
4 Moderate the juicing but still consume fruit and vegetables.
We’ve figured out that if you juice you don’t get much fiber in your diet.
So, what you could do is to juice on a moderate basis, and still consume fresh fruit and fresh vegetables.
Either that, or you could go the smoothie route as mentioned above.
5 Preparation in batches.
Prepping and cleaning and all of that stuff that’s involved in the juicing process does take time and energy.
To avoid an overdose of it, you can prepare your juices in batches.
To store, simply pop your juices into the fridge. They’ll maintain all of the goodness for days on end when stored in a cool place.
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