Is Juicing Better Than Eating the Vegetable?
Juicing is an excellent way to introduce more vegetables into your diet. While there are many benefits to drinking vegetable juice, it is not better or worse than eating the vegetable. A mix of both is preferable.
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Comparisons
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Putting a vegetable into a juicer is different than eating it whole or blending it. The juice is extracted, along with all the vitamins and nutrients, leaving the fiber behind. Fiber is important to health, which is why juicing should not replace eating the vegetable.
However, you might eat have trouble eating two cups of spinach, but you can easily drink eight cups' worth of spinach leaves juiced. That means you get four times the amount of vitamins and minerals. The ability to take in more of what the vegetable has to offer, without all of the filling fiber, is the reason most people juice.
Benefits
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Juicing makes it easier for those who don't love vegetables to get the essential vitamins they have. Vegetables like spinach, kale, carrots and broccoli can be juiced with apples, berries, pears or pineapple. The sweetness of the fruit dominates the drink, which makes getting your daily serving of vegetables delicious and easy to do on the go.
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Speculation
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Stephen Blauer, author of "The Juicing Book" (see Reference 1), claims that when you eat a vegetable, much of the nutrition it supplies is "wasted to fuel its own digestion." Juice is easy to digest, meaning your body takes that much more from the vegetable.
According to the USDA Nutrient Handbook (see Reference 2), vegetables today do not contain the amount of nutrients they did decades ago. The difference between a piece of broccoli in 1997 and 1979 is great; the 1997 broccoli has 53% of the calcium and only 35% of the thiamine than broccoli did in 1979. Juicing helps us get more vitamins out of our vegetables than eating them before juicing, so our body is still getting what it needs.
Misconceptions
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Many believe that blending is the equivalent of juicing. While blending is also great practice, as it breaks down the vegetable and makes it easier to digest, it does not provide the same benefits as juicing. Because the skin, fiber, and solid bits are still present, the body must still take time and energy to break them down. Juice passes through the system rapidly, and the body absorbs more of the nutrients in the process.
Warning
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Juicing should not replace eating vegetables in a balanced diet. Also, many people experience stomach aches when drinking fresh, unpasteurized juice for the first time. To begin, dilute the juice by half with purified, filtered water.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of fady habib
