Juicing vs Blending: Best Way to Drink Fruits and Greens!

Juicer v/s Blender

Here are some common types of juicers that are available in market –

 

 

Most recent addition to the blender’s list are advanced “slow juicers“, also the old types of slow juicers the ones that we have been using in old gold days (they are still available online or at shops near you), and of course there are more advanced versions also available that come at a cost. Slow juicers promise to bring more nutritional value to your glass as they squeeze the juice out (hence slow) of fruit and veggies, while the other common variants use small blades – typically referred to as Juicer-Mixer-Grinder that cuts/chops the fruits and veggies taking some micro-nutrients out to waste.

…and here are some common types of blenders –

 

 

 

 

 

Nutritional Composition

Juicing removes most of the pulp/fiber (amount of pulp being removed would depend on the juicer you are using, there are juicers that will remove nearly 100% of the pulp, whereas others would keep a little, while discard most of it.

Blending keeps nearly 100% of the pulp, the only little pulp/fiber that gets discarded is the one that you remove yourself by means of peeling the fruit or veg.

While both have their own pros and cons, blending gives you all the fiber goodness and it is releases nutrients slowly to body (due to high content of fiber), hence you feel full for longer (less cravings/binging).  juices release nutrients in body faster, good when you need load of nutrients really quick. A lot depends on what type of juicer or blender you are using, so it is important to make a right choice.

Drinking Consistency

Juicer gives you near liquid consistency, whereas blender gives you thick consistency – and called “smoothie” by most than juice (and thickness depends on what you add to the mix). It doesn’t make any difference but of course few like the taste of one over other.

Limitations

Juicers: 
Manual squeezers: Only good for citrus fruits, you cannot juice veggies in them

Electric juicers (also referred to as “slow juicers”, “masticating juicers”): Practically anything, only exceptions are hard and mega fiber fruits and veggies e.g. sugarcane,  or too pulpy fruits like banana, you just can’t juice them

Electric juicers (also referred to as “centrifugal juicers” or just “juicers”): Practically anything, but it doesnt work best with most veggies as it will discard most of the veggies due to high fiber content in them.

Blenders:

Hand-blenders or standard mixers: Good for blending pulpy fruits and leafy veggies e.g. banana, spinach,, kale orange etc, so good for everyday smoothies.

Super fast blenders (Magic Bullet, Nutribullet, Wonderchef Blenders etc): Good if you are really creative with smoothies, this open the entire range of fruits and veggies that you can blend, as they are really really fast (number of rotations/minute), so they can not only blend all of fruits (well almost), and veggies, but also mix them well, as it grinds/cuts the fiber in veggies really well gives you a smooth mix (may be that’s where the smoothie word originated from? wink!).

I personally prefer and have a Nutribullet Blender for nice and quick smoothies of any kind, and a Hurom Slow Juicer – it keeps the nutrients and micro-nutrients in tact, and tastes awesome! and they come with smoothie attachment too!

Hope this article gives you some basic idea and would help you decides what you should be buying next