People often debate over the difference between juicing vs smoothies, or which one is better regarding nutrition. Well, both are beneficial in their aspects because these use in daily life. The only difference between juicing and smoothies is the way we prepare each of them.
If you want to boost your health, then juicing is the best choice. However, both have their benefits and drawbacks, so we can’t wholly call any of them beneficial or harmful.
Smoothies are prepared in a blender while juices are in a juicer. Both contain fruits and veggies, but what precisely a smoothie or juice is? The pros and cons of smoothies and juicing and what exactly they are, are described below:
What is Juicing?
Juicing recipes involves extracting liquid and nutrients from fruits and vegetables. The liquid contains minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients. Juicing is done in a juicer.
When you are making juice, you discard the residual, which is also insoluble fiber. This fiber is healthy for the human body. It is lost while making juices. However, whole fruits and vegetables are more nutritious than juicing because they contain fiber.
Somehow, many people believe that juices are more healthy than eating whole fruits and vegetables. Our body can absorb nutrients better, and it helps our digestive system absorb nutrients easily as juices do not contain insoluble fiber. The reason is that the fiber in fruits and vegetables slows down the process of digestion.
Benefits of juicing
There are many benefits and advantages to juicing. Some of them are as follows:
Helps fight against many diseases:
Juicing can help you reduce the risk of many diseases like cancer, etc.
Help to lose weight:
Taking juices daily can help you to reduce your weight.
Healthy your immune system:
Juices help you to boost your immune system.
Helps in digestion:
Juicing also aids in digestion.
Removes toxins:
It also eliminates toxins from your body.
The side effect of juicing
The main drawback of juicing is that while juicing, the fiber is lost, which is essential for our bodies. The fiber also contains nutrients and pulp, which is lost during juicing.
How to make juice?
There are many types of juices, and there are many ways of making juices. You can add fruits and vegetables of your own choice.
Step 1
Take fruits or vegetables of your choice, and wash them properly. Start peeling them with the help of a knife. You can skip peeling if not necessary, or you like the taste of the skin of your favorite fruit. Also, remove extra seeds.
Step 2
Put fruits or vegetables into a juicer and add some water or milk to it. Add sugar also. If you like the pure taste, don’t add anything.
Step 3
Push the fruits or vegetables well in a juicer. After the juice is ready, pour it into the glass. Add ice cubes if needed. Now your juice is ready to serve.
What are Smoothies?
A smoothie is a drink that you can make by simply blending fruits and vegetables with help of a smoothie machine. It means putting the whole fruit and vegetable in a blender so that no fiber is lost. The entire food and vegetable with their skin and fiber are present in the smoothie. In short, we can say that if a person drinks a celery smoothie, it means he is getting the same nutrients as if he has eaten a fruit or vegetable. Smoothie is more likely a meal replacement than a drink.
Smoothies are full of nutrients. If you drink a smoothie for breakfast, you will feel fresh all day. It also contains more antioxidants than juices.
Extra ingredients
Smoothies have extra ingredients than juices. You can serve smoothies as a delicious, creamy, cold drink in a glass. To make smoothies more delicious, you can add extra ingredients, including nuts, nut butter, and seeds. You can also add yogurt and other milk alternatives, berries including raspberries, and strawberries too. You can also include dark leafy greens in it.
Nuts, nut butter, and seeds
Peanut butter and other seeds contain proteins, and if they are in a smoothie, it will make them rich in protein. As the seeds and nuts are high in calories, add them to a smoothie in a specific quantity if you don’t want to gain weight.
Yogurt and other milk alternatives
These dairy products contain protein, and if they are in a smoothie, it will be a great meal replacement.
Fruits and berries
If you love fruits, add berries to a smoothie. These berries include strawberries that are rich in fiber. The fiber present in the berries makes you feel full.
These are the extra ingredients that a smoothie contains. You can add unlimited ingredients according to your choice. These additional ingredients are not present in juices.
Benefits of smoothies
The benefits of smoothies are as follows:
Reduce stress and depression:
In reviewing the juicing vs smoothies, Drinking a smoothie will help you to reduce stress. It is because smoothies contain organic fruits. Smoothie made up of healthy fruits and vegetables allows you to fight depression and make you happy.
Provides glow on the skin:
A smoothie can help your skin to glow. Many fruits contain carotenoids, which are highly beneficial for skin and complexation.
Prevents heart diseases:
Taking smoothies for breakfast prevents heart disorders.
Fight against cancer:
It is proven scientifically that smoothies made up of vegetables like cauliflower and carrot will reduce cancer chances and even kill the cancerous cell present in the body.
Side effect of smoothies
The only disadvantage is that you can’t chew smoothies. Chewing helps to release the enzymes that aid in digestion. By taking a smoothie, you feel full in less amount.
How to make a smoothie?
Smoothies are of many kinds depending upon one’s choice. Some people prefer smoothies in the morning, while some used to make smoothies in the afternoon. There are different ways to make smoothies. Here is the easiest way of making a smoothie.
Step 1
Firstly you have to pick the fruit of your choice, wash it, and cut it. Now, if you want to add extra ingredients such as leafy green, including spinach and kale, you can include them too.
Step 2
Secondly, you have to select a liquid base. It might include water, milk, etc.
Step 3
Now you can add cream or some cream alternate to make your smoothie thicker.
Step 4
Finally, add some berries and dry fruits and blend them properly in a blender. To make your smoothie smoother, use a good-quality blender. After that, your smoothie is ready to serve.
Juicing vs Smoothies: which is better?
Both of them have their pros and cons. It also depends on what you like. Let’s dig more to find out what is
Presence of fiber
The smoothie contains a variety of fruit and vegetables which are rich in fiber. When making a smoothie, the skin, and fibrous pulp is not removed. While on the other hand, in juicing, there is a liquid extracted from the fruits and vegetables, and it does not contain fiber.
For people who want a low-fiber diet, juicing is more beneficial. The fruit skin and pulp are part of the smoothie; that’s why the smoothie delivers extra vitamins and phytochemicals.
Amount of calories
But if we talk about low calories, certainly juices are the ones that contain low calories in comparison to smoothies. Smoothie has other extra ingredients which increase the number of calories in it.
Presence of protein
A smoothie is rich in protein in comparison to juicing. A smoothie also contains more minerals and vitamins than juicing.
Amount of antioxidant
Smoothies have more antioxidants than juices, so that’s also a reason that a smoothie is more beneficial than juicing.
Way of preparation
Another difference between juicing and smoothies is the way to prepare these. As we have mentioned above, juicing is done in a juicer; in contrast, we make the smoothie in a blender. Both are easy to do things if you have both machines available. So no one wins here.
Digestive Health
A smoothie can improve your digestive health. It makes you feel full and healthier, but on the other side, juicing doesn’t make you feel full, only it can boost your appetite.
Extra ingredients
In juicing, you only get the liquid extracted from the fruit, and you cannot add more ingredients to it. While in a smoothie, you can add extra ingredients, including nuts, seeds, etc., to make it more delicious.
juicing vs smoothies for weight loss
If you want to lose weight then smoothies are most beneficial for you because smoothies are a mixture of fruits and veggies that have more nutrients than juice that help you to burn the fiber or fat of your body and become the cause of weight loss. similarly, if you use juice for weight loss then you also lose weight but your body gains weight again quickly so smoothies play a long time role in losing weight than juicing.
Amount of sugar
The amount of sugar in both is very high. Both juices and smoothies can raise blood sugar. But the level of sugar is high in juices.
So the debate ends here; you can take any of them based on your preference. The pros, cons, and details about smoothies and juices have been described above. But eating vegetables and fruit as a whole is more beneficial than taking a smoothie or juice. Somehow, smoothie fruits and vegetables also lose fiber, which is essential for our health. Fiber contains many nutrients.
so in juicing vs smoothies, A smoothie is a meal replacer because of its high calories, whereas juice can only make you feel fresh. In short, it can boost your health as it contains low calories.
Density
A smoothie is denser than juice, or we can say that a smoothie is thicker than juice. Smoothie contains a liquid base and some extra ingredients and fruits and cream that make the smoothie thicker than juice.
