My Thoughts on Juicing

JUICING vs. BLENDING                                                                                          

TO JUICE OR NOT TO JUICE, THAT IS THE QUESTION !

Is Juicing as good as “they” say it is?

Is Juicing a clever marketing hype to sell a machine?

Is Juicing better than Blending or is Blending better than Juicing?

Fruits and vegetables are made up of nutrients, fiber, and water.  Our bodies are designed to consume whole foods and not processed foods.  Each individual part is very important as an integral part of the package.  Two parts without the third is not the ideal way to consume the food.  Juicing takes out the fiber and all of the stage 2 juice that’s in the pulp and dehydrating takes out the pristine alkaline structured water.  Juice from a juicer is not whole food - it’s considered processed because the fiber with its phytonutrients has been removed. 

Both juicing and dehydrating are processes that seem like a good idea but in reality are very wasteful of valuable ingredients of a food not to mention the amount of time required for the juicing or dehydrating process.  Consuming more vitamins and minerals from fruits and vegetables is what we want to stay healthy or regain health so, at first glance, juicing seems to make sense.  We are told that we don’t need the fiber and it’s just there to hold the juice together.  Marketing hype often hides the real truth.  People often make a decision to buy a juicer after hearing only the marketing hype and not looking into the whole truth and the other options.  Blending is an option that is backed up by science which says whole foods are the healthiest way to eat. 

Juicers are a multibillion dollar industry.  As with any business, you will get the marketing hype and “facts” that may not include the whole truth.  The whole truth is that whole foods are the healthiest things to eat.  Nature intended us to eat whole foods not only part of a food. 

Juicer promoters talk about how quickly the juice gets into the blood stream leading you to believe it’s a good thing, not realizing that it gets into the blood stream too quickly.  Juice will spike your blood sugar and cause other problems the body has to then deal with.  It can be counter-productive and do more damage than good.  The fiber allows the nutrients to enter the blood stream at the perfect speed - not too fast and not too slow.  The body will also process the 2^nd stage juice that is bound up in the pulp.

You will hear a lot of testimonies from people who use juicers about how they were healed of health problems.  In reality, they were probably healed because along with the juicing they stopped consuming the kinds of foods that promote disease - meat, dairy, and processed foods.  Their health would be much better and regained much quicker with whole foods.

The pulp or fiber in fruits and vegetables acts like a broom inside our digestive tract.  It’s a very critical part of the digestive process.  Without the pulp, the system slows down and can even stall - constipation.  If you drink juice you then have to get your fiber elsewhere so why not blend everything together and eat whole foods. 

It’s always better to eat whole foods.  The combination of water, fiber, nutrients and phytochemicals is always perfect for what our bodies were designed to eat.  The fiber that is discarded in juicing helps to slow down the absorption of sugar into the blood.  Juice will cause the blood sugar to rise just like it does with a can of soda, especially the new hybrid carrots with their unnaturally high sugar content.  The reason people love carrot juice is because it is feeding their sugar addiction but in reality they are just trading one sugar drink for another. 

We can easily eat a few carrots at a time and be satisfied.  However, a glass of carrot juice can contain a pound or more of carrots. How long would it take to eat a pound of carrots?   Our bodies don’t need that flood of excess nutrients.  We have a tendency to believe if a little is good then a lot must be better.  So with juicing, we get way too much sugar, way to fast and even though our standard American diet is fiber poor anyway, we thrown away something our bodies desperately needs.  Fiber is actually a nutrient that we need.  Overall, juicing doesn’t make much sense when you look at all the facts.   

Juicing gives us incomplete nutrition from a carrot or anything else we might juice because juicing wastes a lot of the nutrients that are trapped in the fiber.  Blending with a powerful blender will break up the fiber and when the fiber is broken up at the cellular level, it releases the phytochemicals that were bound up in it.  These phytochemicals aren’t released from the pulp when put through a juicer.  They remain in the pulp that is thrown away. 

We should consume whole foods because every part of a whole food is needed for proper assimilation of the nutrients.  The fiber and the phytochemicals that are bound up in it are very important to be consumed together.  The Creator of our bodies also created the food that was designed to nourish that body.  He knew exactly what we needed to maintain vibrant health.  He created whole foods for a reason. 

The blending process does, more efficiently and quickly, what our teeth are designed to do.  Chewing is a very important part of eating.  Most of us take a bite of something, chew a few times, and then swallow mostly chunky food.  Studies have shown that those who live to be over 120+ years old spend many hours eating.  They will take many hours to eat one apple.  Their teeth grind the food up and all the stage 2 juice is released from the food - something that the stomach is not designed to do.  The expression, “drink your food and chew your drink” makes a lot of sense. 

Juicing seems to be an excuse for some people to justify continuing to eat junk food or their calorie dense, high fat, nutrient light - “comfort foods”.  They think a little bit of good will balance out the bad. 

With more to think about, you can now make a more intelligent decision about whether to juice or blend.

Remember, WHOLE FOODS RULE!