One of the fastest growing nutritional trends lately has been people making smoothies and juicing. No not steroids, but juicing fruits and vegetables. Both are great methods in allowing you to get an ample amount of your daily fruit and vegetable intake in a simple and convenient method. However, there are also numerous cons to both methods that you should also be cognisant about.
First off, while making smoothies and juicing may sound like the same they use different methods to make the drink. For juicing you need an actual juicing machine that will process your food through either a centrifugal or masticating juicing method. The masticating method is more beneficial as it does not get rid of as many of the nutrients as the centrifugal method. Smoothies just involve using a blender which will not extract any of the nutritional content of the fruits and vegetables that you would use in the concoction
The basic benefits to both of these methods are very similar with convenience being the top reason for most people, as already stated. There are lots of people that don't like the taste of certain fruits or vegetables but with the right mixture in a liquefied version they don't actually taste the certain food they do not care for.. Think of these methods as a great natural and fresh multi-vitamin for your body to get a kickstart to your day. I personally would recommend even adding in some protein powder to get a bigger boost or some low sugar yogurt. Adding either of these into the drinks will help your muscles recover more from workouts as protein is the building block of your muscles.
Regarding cons, the biggest con for a juicer initially is the expense. Most everybody has a simple blender that they can use for the smoothies but most don't have a juicer. In addition, the juicer gets rid of lots of the content of the actual food so you'll have to use more food to get the same amount of volume. The NutriBullet is one of the most popular ways to make smoothies. Be very careful with both methods though regarding caloric consumption. Calories will add up quickly with the more foods you put into each drink. Make sure to add up the caloric content of everything that you put into the drinks as you could easily consume 500+ calories without even knowing it. Yes they would be healthy calories but they do add up. Furthermore, fruits contain lots of sugar and you want to keep your sugar content lower to minimize insulin spikes in your body. When consuming these drinks try to consume them mainly in the beginning of the day as it is always better to stay away from sugar later in the day.
Regarding certain recipes it all comes down to personal preference in taste. A mixture that I really like is an even mixture of strawberries and blueberries with some low sugar vanilla yogurt. Another great concoction would be the same mixture while adding in either some spinach leaves or kale or substituting the yogurt for either vanilla or strawberry protein powder. A mixture of a banana, pineapple, and kale is another great option. Leave some comments if you have a favorite mixture that you would like to share with others.
Summing it all up go ahead and start making your smoothies or juicing but just very aware of the cons that could come with these methods.
