Is fruit that is juiced or blended better than no fruit at all? Or, is it better to avoid any juiced fruit?
I like the flavour of fruit but not the texture, because of this I avoid all fruit and am pretty close minded on trying anything new due to price and waste.
I recently debated buying baby blended fruit pouches to add vitamins into my diet; is this something that will be better than avoiding fruit all together?
Thank you for any comments in advance!
Edit: Thank you all so much for your replies, and as well for the suggestions and advice!
In: 10
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9657402/
I’m citing a source here, because it contradicts some of what others are saying in this thread.
Juice is “bad” because it removes all the fiber while leaving the sugar. Fiber helps give a feeling of fullness and helps regulate the entire digestive process, including blood sugar.
Smoothies are “bad” because of added sugar. Sugar is not inherently bad, it’s just super easy to have too much. In general, any foods with added sugar will put you over the “too much” line.
Blended fruit is NOT bad at all. It can in fact be better than whole fruit if you include the seeds from some fruits like strawberries, because those seeds get cracked open and digested whereas in whole fruit they normally pass undigested.
Whole fruit is “good” because of the fiber and vitamins. Too much fruit is bad because of the sugar. https://www.myplate.gov/eat-healthy/fruits recommends about 2 cups of fruit per day. That’s about one large apple, or two bananas, for example.
MyPlate has it’s controversies, but 2 cups whole or blended is a pretty good recommendation. Just don’t add any sugar.
if you chew the fruit, it is still a bit chunky when it ends in your stomach. It will take some time for your body to extract the sugar from the center of the chunks, thus spreading out the sugar intake over a longer period.
Blended or juiced fruits offer their sugar to the body all at once, making you blood sugar spike, which will lead to more hunger later on.
Juice will have a higher proportion of sugar as most of the fruit body is strained out, but the sugar from both juiced and blended fruit will absorb faster than unprocessed fruit. This can lead to a spike in blood sugar, which will in turn result in a release in insulin. While it is unlikely that you will get diabetes from blended/juiced fruit consumption alone, it can be a concern if you already have to watch your blood sugar levels.
Overall, besides processed store bought stuff, there blended/juiced fruit wouldnt have less or different nutrients then chewed. There is a negligible difference in “healthiness” between these options.
The healthy thing in fruits is fiber. Fiber usually gets discarded when making juice, since it mostly stays in the pulp. Wholly blended fruit retains all of the fiber though, so it’s not much different. I don’t know whether baby fruit pouches you have in mind contain much fiber, but you can maybe look it up. Also see that they don’t have sugar added. Or buy smoothies. Or just blend fruit at home.
Throwing some fruit in a blender yourself is fine. There’s no difference health wise.
Juice companies will sometimes throw in some extra sugar though.
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