Ultimately, everyone has to decide for themselves whether using a juicer, blender, or eating fruits and vegetables is the best nutritional option. The goal is to include more nutrient-dense foods in your diet that will help you avoid many common health problems and illnesses. Using a juicer or blender will allow you to easily get the amount of healthy fruits and vegetables that you may not want to munch on as whole foods.

A juicer separates the pulp, seeds and skin of the fruit or vegetable. The benefits are instant nutrient absorption and less time and energy to digest fiber. If you use a low RPM juicer, like a masticator type, that spins around 80 RPM, it won’t over-oxidize; introduce too much oxygen which quickly degrades and destroys nutrients. Juice from a “slow juicer” can be refrigerated for 72 hours. keeping its nutritional value intact. When you use a centrifugal juicer, which can spin up to 13,000 RPM, the juice begins to lose its nutrients after 20 minutes, limiting the option of drinking the juice later.

The downside of juicing is that you don’t get the gut-cleansing benefit of fiber, and juicing can have a higher glycemic index than the same foods eaten whole, causing your blood sugar to rise faster. Juicers have a lot more parts to clean, but the process is relatively quick and easy if you attend to it immediately after using the juicer.

Blenders simply chop all the ingredients you put into them to create a smooth liquid while leaving the pulp and fiber intact. Fiber is essential for colon health and by mixing it together you get the fiber plus a slower rate of sugar absorption. A powerful blender like a Vitamix or Blendtec is needed to make fruit sorbets with frozen fruit and creamy dressings and sauces with nuts and seeds. They can also effortlessly crush ice and blend vegetables for your fruit or green smoothies. For some, the ease of cleaning makes the blender the most desirable option.

What about just eating your fruits and vegetables? Well, you certainly can and should include raw fruits, green leafy vegetables, greens, nuts, and seeds in your daily diet! However, it takes about a day and a half for the body to fully process food and only extracts a small percentage of valuable juice from all the fiber, with a larger percentage being eliminated through normal channels. When you juice, the highly concentrated nutrients enter your bloodstream very quickly, so you can see how juicing provides instant gratification for the body. Juices and smoothies shouldn’t replace all the fruits or vegetables in your diet, but they’re great for increasing nutrient absorption and getting plenty of nutrients from raw green vegetables without gas or bloating. You can easily find great juice and smoothie recipes to make healthy, nutritious eating fun AND delicious.