Vegetable Juicing Versus Fruit Juicing

These days, the new trend for weight loss and fitness is juicing. It simply means to turn solid fruits and vegetables into liquid. You can then either drink that juice or make energy cocktails and smoothies from it.

You can juice fresh produce in three ways: squeezing the fruits and vegetables manually, using a masticating juicer, or juice with a centrifugal juicer. Masticating juicers and manual squeezing will keep most of the fiber in your juice, but a centrifugal juicer will separate the fiber from the juice.

Importance of Fiber

Fiber is a necessary part of your diet to help avoid digestion or other problems. It helps in cleaning your colon of waste, lowers cholesterol, decreases fat absorption, helps in controlling the level of blood sugar, and through all this ultimately aids in weight loss.

Drinking juice without fiber may result in not getting the recommended amount of fiber in your daily intake, which is around 21-38 grams a day. Some fiber can be added back by including protein powder to your juice.

Caloric Differences

There is a lot of difference between the nutritional and caloric composition of fruits and vegetables. Before taking fruit juice, you’ll need to count the calories carefully. One fruit can contain around 60 calories and produces approximately 4 ounces juice. An average serving of juice is about 12-16 ounces, which would result in your consuming 180-200 calories by drinking just one glass of juice.

It would be better to go on a juicing diet using vegetables, and juicing fruits only occasionally. This is because one cup vegetables contain around 25 calories; therefore a serving of the same size will have just 75-100 calories, almost half compared to the calories in fruit juices. Fruit juice also has a high amount of simple carbohydrates, which results in quick absorption in the bloodstream, making fruit juice less filling than vegetable juice.

To make the best use of all the nutrition in your juice, consume it immediately after juicing, or freeze it. Fresh juice starts to lose its nutritional value quickly because of oxidation.

In conclusion, it is agreed that vegetable juices are healthier than fruit juices due to the differences in calories and carbs. However, whether you use fruits or vegetables, juicing should preferably be a supplement taken with a good diet plan, instead of making juicing your sole dieting program.