<p>Nutritionally speaking, is there are difference–other than one taking less time to consume?</p>
<p>There is no difference as long as the contents aren’t tampered with. If you juice or make smoothies with raw fruits and vegetables, then there is no nutritional difference in the fruits and vegetables that you’re consuming. </p>
<p>If you are discarding the pulp when you make your green smoothie, then of course it won’t be as nutritious as eating the kale and bananas and apples whole, but if you’re simply blending (rather than using a juicer to extract the juice and leave the pulp behind), then a smoothie is equal to whatever whole fruits/veggies you put in it.</p>
<p>Are skins used for smoothies, for fruits that have skins? </p>
<p>Skins can be used, yes. </p>
<p>Just keep in mind whether to use or skip the skins when dealing with fruit that may have been exposed to pesticides!</p>
<p>The taking less time to consume part is a problem, nutritionally, if you are talking about fruit (which is very high in sugar). The reason that eating whole fruit (within reason) isn’t terribly fattening is that the sugar is eaten with a lot of fiber, which slows the digestion and spreads the load of fructose your liver has to process over a longer, more manageable time. If you chug a smoothy with the same amount of fruit, then a bigger load hits your liver faster. If you consume MORE fruit in a smoothy, then it’s a double problem.</p>
<p>Looking at it from the opposite perspective. There is no nutritional value in liquifying fruits and veggies to drink them. There may or may not be a nutritional downside to it.</p>
<p>Eating whole fruits and vegetables gives your jaws and muscles a bit of exercise. Probably not significant in calorie burn, but can be significant for growing children, in that well exercised jaws may grow more to need less or no orthodontic treatment, and may have room for wisdom teeth to erupt functionally.</p>
<p>^^^^^I was wondering about the same with regard to fiber. I know when you make juice of fruit where the fiber is left behind, you are getting a whole different food as it relates to glycemic index/load, which is very relevant to those who have any problem at all with tolerating carbohydrates and who may be negatively impacted by a quick rush of insulin into the blood stream which would have been slowed down by consumption of natural fiber of the whole fruit.</p>
<p>Fruit’s even more troublesome because it’s mostly fructose, Unlike glucose, fructose does NOT trigger an insulin release, so there is no real metabolic mechanism for quickly processing a big slug of it. Fructose, like its metabolic cousin alcohol, has be almost entirely metabolized by the liver. Too much, too quickly and the liver converts fructose to triglycerides (fat), leading to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is pretty much the same as alcoholic fatty liver disease. The elevated triglycerides are a strong marker for metabolic syndrome and correlate with coronary artery disease. Drinking sugar is not the healthiest thing. It’s arguably the worst thing you can do nutritionally, notwithstanding the popular notion that “fruit juice” is healthy…</p>
<p>Excellent and informative explanation @interesteddad, but it leaves me (tongue in cheek) thinking that I should just continue eating chocolate if I am going to trigger non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. I am kidding, but still….</p>
<p>When my boys were younger, I pushed the multiple daily servings of fruit but somewhere in the last eight years or so, have shifted the emphasis to veggies. Who knows what they will eat when they are off at college! </p>
<p>And as much as they happily eat an assortment of veggies, I don’t think I could convince them to drink anything green out of the Vitamix.</p>
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<p>Ok, I should have known that; thanks for the great explanation. I like fruit, but I’ve never been a big fruit person, so even less a fruit juice person. Or even desserts, though of course real milk chocolate is heaven. </p>
<p>My problem is potatoes and rice. And cheese… My dream meal is either a pizza or beef fajita bean and cheese nachos. Oh God…</p>
<p>Dr. David Argus will tell you that blending the vegetables, etc. will destroy all the good stuff inside of them. It’s better to eat them without blending them.</p>
<p>Okay, I have also heard the theory that you cannot possibly eat enough fruits and vegetables to give you the super nutrient boost that people think they are getting from juicing. I have no idea if it’s true but do know a cancer patient who is paying 6-thousand dollars a month for juicing advice so I hope there is at least a bit of truth to it. for her sake. </p>
<p>Blending does NOT destroy all the “good stuff” inside of your vegetables. While there is a nutrient decrease, to say all the nutrients are magically zapped off is not the case.</p>
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<p><a href=“Keys To Living a Longer Life | Inside Edition”>http://www.insideedition.com/consumer/7599-keys-to-living-a-longer-life</a></p>
<p>I think I will go with Argus. He is pretty good. I read his book and he does not say anything he cannot back up with study after study.</p>
<p>Can you link the study, please? No reason to drink a blended juice if it has no nutrition!</p>
<p>Unless you lack teeth or have some other digestive issue, why bother to liquify your fruit??</p>
<p>To clarify something: Blending (smoothies) and juicing are not the same thing.</p>
<p>Here’s a video of someone making a smoothies with a blender: <a href=“How to Make 'Dirty Juice' in a Vita-Mix - YouTube”>How to Make 'Dirty Juice' in a Vita-Mix - YouTube;
<p>If she wanted to convert this smoothie into juice, she would need a cheesecloth</p>
<p>If you put your fruits and vegetables in a blender, the nutritional content will be different than if you had juiced them. Just as they would be different if you blended your fruits and vegetables for 90 seconds versus 30 seconds. It is highly variable. </p>
<p>Which is why I was looking forward to the study @razorsharp had because it would give some insight on how long the researchers blended the fruits and vegetables for the oxidation to take place…</p>
<p>Niquii77,</p>
<p>Why would it be different if you blended for a longer period of time?</p>