August
2008
Dear Mark: What’s Wrong with Juicing?
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Mark,
In your last “Dear Mark” post you said “…why drink your veggies and fruits in concentrated form when you can eat them? I’d just be careful of overdoing the juices.” What is wrong with juicing? I’ve always thought that making fresh juice is extremely healthy for you. Am I right to think that juicing is part of healthy lifestyle or have I been bamboozled by an unnamed, charismatic infomercial personality with bushy eyebrows?
Charismatic personality aside (know what you mean, by the way), I don’t consider juicing a bad thing. However, “eating” only a fraction of a fruit’s/vegetable’s edible content in this case just isn’t going to be as healthy as eating all of it.
Nutrients: Although a generally nutritious option, juice is ultimately a higher sugar, lower nutrient version of its produce sources. Calorie for calorie, for example, you’ll take in more sugar drinking apple juice than you would eating the apple itself. To boot, juicing inevitably reduces or eliminates the majority of fruit and vegetable skin. The skin, for many of our favorite produce pals, berries, apples, pears, plums, figs, etc., contains a hefty amount of a fruit/veggie’s total nutrients. Remember the produce color wheel? Those much-hailed pigments, seats of flavonoids and carotenoids, are concentrated in the skin (and, in some cases, the pulp) as well. Another case of your mother/grandmother being right (again): eat the skin.
Fiber: Again, when you juice you’re deliberately leaving out the skins and pulp (or most of them anyway). Just as the skins and pulp usually hold a lot of the nutrient load, they are the primary (if not sole) source of a fruit’s or vegetable’s fiber content. While I’ve said before that our medical culture overplays the fiber issue (convincing us to down large quantities of grain-based fiber products to “clean us out”), I nonetheless believe that we do require some plant-based fiber for intestinal health. Another crucial benefit of fiber in this case? It slows down the digestion and absorption of the juice’s sugars.
The take-home message is this: juice can offer a decent source of nutrients on days when it’s hard to work in your usual amount of fruits and veggies, but it’s just not an adequate substitute for the real/whole source. (Note: It also requires that you recalibrate your overall carb load that day.)
If you want to include juice in your diet, go for fresh without a doubt. (I wouldn’t suggest buying bottled juices. They’re heated for safety and shelf stability, which reduces their nutrient content and gives them that stale, “off” taste. To boot, the labels may also reveal added sweeteners.) There are plenty of good juicers on the market, and some of us even have access to good juice bars where we live. Personally, I’d recommend making your own. Juice bars generally make their juices fresh for you but might not be as picky in choosing their produce as you would be. Of course, on top of it all you’ll pay a lot more than if you made it yourself. When you juice at home, don’t make a large batch. Juice breaks down pretty quickly. To maximize nutrition (and taste), be sure to make it fresh daily.
As always, thanks for the great questions and comments, everybody. Keep ‘em coming!
Further Reading:
Fun with Fiber: The Real Scoop
On the Problems of Cultivated Fruit
The Definitive Guide to Primal Eating
Juicing was a big part of my life for several years. The argument that convinced me was this: you can ingest more goodness when you juice fruits and vegetables than would would ever be able to get from eating because you could not physically eat that much fruit and veg. I was on 2 pints a day. This was before I understood the impact of sugars on insulin etc - I would juice large amounts of fruit (and vegetables) on a daily basis!
Old habits die hard, so I still make about half a pint of juice from vegetables like beetroot, celery, carrots, spinach and zuchini once or twice a week as a kind of vitamin booster, with the rest of my fruit and veg being consumed in their full form.
I think I will ditch the juicing altogether soon (how many hunter gatherers had a ‘Champion Juicer’ in their cave!?) but in the meantime am hoping that my current approach is reasonably sound.
Skipping out on the fiber while juicing is sort of cheating your body a little, this is why I am just against it. I think that it also a little expensive to go through all of the fruits and veggies that you would normally not speed through if you were eating the fruits and veggies.
I’m not strongly against juicing. At least its better than a coke or a frappacino. And Methuselah, the beet and celery combo is one of my favorites.
But I’d have to disagree that it’s cheaper to make your own juice. It takes quite a few whole fruits and vegetables to output just a few full glasses of juice (at least with our office juicer). I’ve actually spent over $20 before just to come up with about 4 cups of juice.
In general I try to go with smoothie over juice. As the whole berry or what not is included with the skin.
My dad used to use a juicer all the time when I was little. He’d always save the leftover pulp and mix it into plain yogurt for me, so the rest of the fruit wouldn’t go to waste. Man, I freakin’ loved carrot juice as a kid, but I never drink juice now.
Excellent post.
I always try to buy fresh fruit and eat it rather than drink it as a liquid. But I didn’t know the skin contained most of the nutrients! I always heard my parents say it, but I thought it was a myth so I never bothered to eat the skin.
My favorite fruits are watermelon and pineapple. I can’t eat the skins on those.
Vitamins or no vitamins I always squeeze my portion of fresh juice in the morning. And I admin I feel really good afterwards. Before my juice mania I drank coffee in the morning and it felt good for a while but not I also got tired and distracted faster.
Now when I drink only juice and do some exercise in the morning I feel good the whole day.
To the “Is juice good for me?” question, I always answer, “Sure, IF…”
IF you:
1. Juice it yourself and use ALL of the entire fruits and/or vegetables. That means buying an industrial strength machine like a Vita-Mix or a BlendTec Total Blender that can handle the load. Don’t bother trying this with your little thirty buck 500 watt blender.
2. Don’t push yourself over 100 carb grams for the day by blending a bunch of high carb fruits. We’re wanting a fun way to get phytonutrients, not a blood sugar spike!
Smoothies and juices are fun. But be sure and keep the nutrients and not toss them out with the pulp.
Be well,
Ben Fury, CFT, CMT
You might want to consider a Vita-Mix. It makes “whole juice”. Basically, a very powerful blender. Therefore, the juice contains the whole fruit, including seeds in most fruits. I’ve used one for over 10 years and have been happy with the results. You can add protein powder, honey, ice, if desired, making a smoothie. Pricey, but well made.
Living in So Cal, I’m surrounded by “juicies”. Most “juicies” are completely unaware of how much sugar they are consuming. I often wonder if the “benefits” “juicies” claim are as much placebo effect or sugar high as they are due to the phyto-nutrients.
I often see folks buying 25-50 pounds of carrots at a time, for example, presumable for their beta-carotene-rich juices. I tend to get my preformed Vit A from animal sources, such as liver and grass-fed butter, cod liver oil, etc. Sure takes up less space in the fridge than a huge sack o’ carrots and I don’t have to worry about inefficient conversion or a hernia from carrying sacks of carrots. If everyone consumed that many carrots, there wouldn’t be enough carrots to go around :-).
While I do make the occasional smoothie at home (with a simple handheld blender stick), I tend to stick to lower sugar produce like berries and stone fruits (as whole as possible, not just fruit juice - or no produce at all), egg yolks/cultured dairy, and ample fats like coconut milk/cream and/or heavy cream. I avoid smoothies from other sources (packaged or smoothie shops) as they are always too high in sugar, usually are mostly ice anyway, have too little or no fat (which I need for energy), and tend to use processed powders for protein. Homemade smoothies are much cheaper, too, and a good use of overripe fruit that the kidlet wouldnt’ touch, anyway.
As with everything in life, balance is the magic word. I firmly believe that juicing can help our bodies to gain easy access to crucial nutrients. I have had my vitamin levels checked before and after a period of juicing regularly. I was amazed by how quickly deficiencies were rectified by juicing.
Of course I still eat whole fruits and veggies. And I use smoothies to add extra fiber. As one tool in a healthy kitchen, a juicer is in my opinion vital - not to mention fun! Happy juicing, folks!
Rika Susan
[...] chasing, at least they call off a charge once in a blue moon. —Mark’s Mystery Meat: juicing, your immune system, —Geek-out: space (training, risks, pictures), viral batteries, [...]
Interesting research on carbs.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080821110113.htm