Photo by Francesca Hotchin
If you’re not familiar with juicing, it basically involves extracting juice from fresh fruit and vegetables as either your full diet for a few days or part of your diet. The juicing phenomenon has recently exploded and has become a popular method to hopefully “detox” and/or lose weight. Personal trainers, dieters, and celebrities alike have all tried juicing in one form or another.
Variations of the diet range from a strict juice fast to simply adding one glass of fresh vegetable juice to your current meal plan. But like most diet fads, there are extreme beneficial claims with little to no evidence.
With that said, most personal trainers and dietitians can agree that juicing may have certain benefits since it is promoting taking in more greens. However, juicing by itself is not necessarily the best way to consume your fruits and vegetables, but for some people the advantage may outweigh the disadvantages. So before you jump on the juicing band wagon and go out and by the latest and greatest juicer and pounds of fruits and veggies, let’s take look at the pros and cons of juicing:
Photo by Milo McDowell
Pro:
- If you have a hard time consuming the daily-recommended dose of fruits and vegetables, juicing can be an alternative way to supplements that lost nutrition. Kids aren’t the only picky eaters, many adults can’t stomach the thought of eating certain vegetables, like broccoli or spinach. If you fall under this category, juicing might be a good alternative for you. By juicing your least favorite vegetables with sweeter ones, like carrots or beets, you can get in some extra veggie nutrition you’d otherwise be skipping out on.
- Choosing a fresh juice as a mid-meal snack, rather than a high calorie, pre-packaged snack can potentially be a healthier alternative. Fresh pressed juice can be a great, low calorie alternative to satisfy those mid-meal tummy grumbles.
- Fresh juice lacks salts or other additives that you find in pre-packaged meal replacements drinks. So, if you’re currently replacing meals with other supplement drinks, switching to a fresh juice could be a great way to pack in concentrated amounts of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.
Photo by Rezel Apacionado
Cons:
- Juicing removes the fiber from your fruit. Fruits and some vegetables generally contain a high amount of sugar per serving. For instance a cup of strawberries equates to 53kcal and 7g of sugar vs. a cup of carrots 52kcal and 6g of sugar. So when you juice your fruits instead of eating them, you get all of the sugar and none of the fiber. Many experts’ advise that if you are going to juice, you should avoid juicing mostly fruit and stick to the veggies, which don’t contain as much fiber and are generally low in sugar, if you choose the right vegetables like
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Kale
- Cabbage
- Leafy greens
- Sometimes people tend to “cheat” with high calorie rich items like desserts or pizza. From simply being hungry, which will lead you to making bad decision or because they feel they should reward themselves. This will clearly offset the potential benefits that juicing would have on your weight management.
- Juicing does not promote healthy or positive eating habits. While for some people this could potentially help kick start a diet and exercise routine. The fact is, simply avoiding food by juicing doesn’t develop healthy habits for future success. I refer to this quote often with anyone trying to develop any habits, whether it be dieting or exercising:
“Habits start like twigs that are easily broken. But throughout time, they become steel rods”
-Frosty Westering
- There are lots of nutrients in solid foods that you simply don’t get from juicing. It’s important that you balance your juice diet with solid foods, not only to replace the missing nutrients, but also to train yourself to eat properly all the time, not just when you’re dieting.
Juicing can POTENTIALLY have certain health benefits, like packing in more vitamins and nutrients, consuming more vegetables and cutting out additives and unnatural ingredients. If you choose this route I strongly believe that you should have a balance of solid foods with your juice too, I know this is generally unconventional and isn’t considered “detoxing” but it will not only replace missing nutrients but also train you to eat properly at the same time.
Photo by Lucas Vasques
Research
Juice fanatics are quick to point out all of the benefits that juicing can have. But the truth is, as of now there is no clincal research to backup any of these claims. In fact, all the clinical research done on juicing proves quite the opposite. Dr. James Dillard, assistant clinical professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City warns us,
“It’s not a great way to lose weight, because you’ll gain it all back — you yo-yo. It’s just like the Atkins diet. The weight you lose is water weight.” Information about juicing on the Mayo Clinic website supports these claims. They suggests that “The best diet is a healthy diet based on fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean sources of protein.”
However, we know that people will do what they want to do. So IF you have decided to incorporate juicing into your current diet, here are a few helpful trainer suggestions that could help you get the most out of juicing:
- Don’t do a juice fast. While it’s fine to supplements snacks, or even a meal, with fresh “juice”, completely replacing ALL of your meals can backfire. Depriving yourself of whole foods can leave you hungry, malnourished, and potentially lead you to make a bad decision later.
- Avoid the sugars: This means the juice should be more vegetables than fruits or choose fruits lower on the glycemic index such as grapefruits, figs, apricots, etc…
- Drink your juice right away. The active ingredients in fresh juice deteriorate with time. If you want to receive all of the nutritional benefits that juicing has to offer, the juice needs to be consumed almost immediately.
Now that we’ve weighed all the pros and cons of juicing, it’s up to you make an educated decision on how to best incorporate this fad diet into your daily life. Just remember to stick to mostly veggies, don’t overload on high glycemic fruits, and try to do a mix of juice and eating whole foods if possible.
Diet smart 🙂