Around 4 years ago I started to regularly add smoothies to my diet in order to increase my fruit and vegetable intake. I started off with mainly fruit smoothies and since a while I have swapped my favourite strawberry-tahini smoothie with a simple green smoothie that is quick to do, tasty and has given my skin a much clearer look (see recipe below).
I am also very fond of green juices and a big fan of carrot juice and all variations of it. So I was very interested to know if juices or smoothies are more beneficial from a nutritional point of view. In the back of my head I always thought that smoothies have more calories whereas especially fruit juices contain a lot of fruit sugar. I was curious to read about it during my education as nutritional therapist. And here is what I found:
Juicing removes the fibre in your fruit and veg as the fibrous pulp normally gets discarded, unlike with blending or when eaten whole. So what is the role of fibre anyways? Fibre is basically a carbohydrate that cannot be completely broken down by the digestive enzymes of the human body. It has no calories or food energy and mainly is found in plant foods such as fruit and vegetables, nuts, grains and legumes. Instead of being absorbed into the bloodstream like sugars and starches, it passes through the digestive tract and adds bulk to foods which makes you feel full longer and let’s the body absorb sugars more slowly. Therefore it also may help with weight loss. Fibre also binds up to 80% of cancer-inhibiting antioxidant polyphenols in fruit and vegetable. As antioxidants are also very important for the skin and for anti ageing, we wouldn’t want to miss out on those, would we?
This means that by removing the fibre through juicing, we waste a lot of valuable substances that plant foods contain. Some fibres like pectin, which can be found in apples, are able to bind with toxins and transport them out of the body. So as much as I love my carrot juice, I will definitely stick to my daily smoothie.
Some smoothie tips:
- By adding oats, berries, seeds, nuts and dark leafy greens to your smoothies you get fibre and antioxidants into your body.
- If you substitute whole milk or yogurt with plant based milks, you keep the calories in smoothies under control.
- Make sure you add more vegetable than fruit to your smoothie to keep the fruit sugar at bay.
- Smoothies really are my “go to convenience healthy foods”: I buy washed baby spinach in bags that I freeze as a whole. I also freeze my bananas and strawberries so I only need to take out the necessary amounts in the morning and put them in the blender. Frozen bananas also make a smoothie more creamy.
Every morning green smoothie for two
1 peeled ripe banana, fresh or frozen
1-2 large handful(s) of frozen baby spinach
1 small handful of cashews
1 handful of oats
1 large glass (approx. 400ml) of unsweetened almond milk
Add everything into blender and blend until smooth. If the consistency is two thick for your taste, add a little water or reduce the oats slightly. Enjoy!
