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Pulp Fiction? Juicing vs. Blending
Juicing and blending have become increasingly fashionable in the last few years and I’m sure you’ll know someone who has recently done some form of juice diet or cleanse.
Both juicing and blending are excellent ways of increasing our intake of fruit and veg, which are micronutrient dense foods, which are absolutely vital if health is on your priorities list. If health isn’t on your priorities list – with the risk of sounding like a life coach – maybe it should be?
What’s the difference between juicing and blending?
So to some people this title might seem slightly strange, a bit of a tomatoe / tomato situation if you like. For those of you who don’t know the difference, blending doesn’t remove the pulp whereas juicing does.
Pulp = fibre
With blending, as I mentioned above you keep the pulp, which is where all the insoluble fibre is contained. From looking at a hell of a lot of food diaries over the years the majority of the population aren’t getting enough fibre in their diet. Fibre is great for your digestive tract and will slow down the absorption of sugar, which is what a lot of people worry about when consuming fruit.
With juicing you don’t have the fibre to slow down the absorption of sugar, but fibre also slows down the speed of which you can absorb nutrients and holds onto some of the nutritional value in the food meaning the vast majority of nutrients in the juice are accessible.
So should I be juicing or blending?
The long and short of it is that both are great options, that being said I would probably lean towards blending as like I said above the majority of us could do with the increased fibre intake. With the typical western diet being so processed now most foods are lacking in fibre, which is why most people aren’t getting adequate amounts. A diet low in fibre can negatively effect your health in a number of ways a lot of them stemming from issues with the liver. That being said you can have too much fibre. Around 30g per day is roughly where you want to be.
If you do either, my advice would be to try and use them more as supplemental nutrition rather than as a meal. Short term a few days of juicing may be good to give the digestive tract a bit of rest, but long term it is very hard to take in enough calories just through juicing or blending. Nutrition Made Simple guides are designed to show you the ropes to balanced food planning that will help you reap more benefits long-term than any diet.
We help our members with a nutritional programme that works for them, if you’re struggling, give us a shout at our gym in North Kensington or try out our personal training and we’ll help you work out a plan that suits you.
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