To Juice or Not to Juice? That is the Question.

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Clients often ask me if they can juice their fruits and/or vegetables. I’m not in the business of giving permission to folks, of telling them what they can or cannot do; that’s not what I do. I educate, and will give an opinion, and then folks must take the knowledge and opinions/suggestions I provide and do what they will.

Do I recommend juicing? Absolutely not.

It’s a “quick fix” . . . a term that is already associated with a lousy, unsustainable way of not only losing weight but of keeping it off. In this case, it’s a quick and easy way to get one’s fruits and vegetables out of the way and be done with it; to sort-of meet a quota for the day and move on. It’s no wonder the juicing inquiry is always made by folks who have been dieting their whole lives.

I’m not a “good” food vs “bad” food kind of person. And in my program, as everyone who has completed it knows, EVERYTHING comes back into one’s life during the Stabilization and Maintenance process, including all the so called “junk foods” as occasional options. And, of course, a juiced fruit or vegetable (a “smoothie”) is better than drinking a Coke or Pepsi. But when comparing juicing to eating whole fruits or vegetables, the version derived from the blender is nutritionally inferior . . . by a great margin.

Juicing extracts the juice from fresh fruits or vegetables. While the resulting liquid may contain some of the vitamins, minerals, and plant chemicals (phytonutrients) found in the whole fruit or vegetable, the fiber is lost. This changes the function the whole fruit or veggie serves in our bodies.

✅ It is fiber that keeps you fuller longer because the body takes a longer time to break it down in digestion and is therefore slower to convert into glucose in your blood stream.

✅ It is fiber which helps the body maintain a healthy weight and lowers your odds of heart disease.

✅ It is fiber which also cuts your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, promotes healthy gut bacteria, and even helps reduce your risk of certain cancers, according to a growing list of medical and nutritional studies.

✅ It is fiber that helps speed up the transit of food in the digestive tract and helps prevent constipation.

And when it comes to trying to lose weight, juicing can backfire on a person because dieters tend to add more fruits or vegetables to a juice concoction or smoothie, more than they would eat in one sitting. By doing so, they increase sugar intake and excess calories — without getting the full benefit of the fruits or vegetables’ natural nutrients.

Here’s just a sampling of common fruits and veggies used for juicing, along with the number of “whole” pieces of raw fruits and vegetables needed to yield 1 cup (8 oz.) of juice:

8 cups raw spinach                   4 medium apples
9 medium carrots                      3 medium oranges
8 celery stalks                            3 cups strawberries
3 medium zucchini                    3 Bartlett pears
2-1/2 bunches of kale               1/8 watermelon
2 heads Romaine lettuce          8 medium lemons

So, for the same reason I wouldn’t encourage putting 4 oz. of meat or chicken or 5 oz. of fish into a processor and juicing it down to get a quick protein serving into your body, I don’t recommend or encourage juicing for anyone who is overweight or obese and has been perpetually dieting.

Any day of the week, whole food consumption is preferred over a liquid diet.