Which is better – Blending or juicing?

Juicing is a fantastic way to get nutrients into your body fast. It’s a great way to pack vitamins and minerals into your diet that you wouldn’t normally get from physically eating that amount fruit and vegetables and a great tasting way to hide nutrients from fussy kids. Living in regional Western Australia means access to amazing fresh produce, so let’s make the most of it.

Juicing involves using an appliance to turn the raw fruit or vegetables into liquid so you can drink it. Home juicers can cost from anywhere as little as $20 for a small bullet device, up into the hundreds for fancy café-style juice extractors. Most of these work by either blending the fruit and vegetables, squeezing the juice out, or chopping finely and spinning the pieces until the juice separates.

So what is the best type of machine for you – juicing or blending? Here we will tackle this hotly debated topic and help you decided which type of appliance you may prefer for your needs.

Blending

A blender will break down the entire piece of fruit or vegetable meaning everything is retained within the final product. You’ll find that your juice will be a lot thicker (unless you add extra liquid) than if you passed the liquid through a juicer. Many prefer blending as it retains the goodness of the fibre within the fruit or vegetable rather than it being thrown out.

We all know that fibre is important in our diets to help move our digestion along and helps us ward off development of health concerns such as bowel cancers, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and constipation. Therefore the added health benefits of blending can be quite high compared to juicing if it’s fibre you are after. You can also add in extra ingredients such as protein powders, milk, or ice to create the texture and added nutrients.

Blenders are multifunctional so if you choose one of these you can do other things such as make soups, ice-cream, salad dressings, desserts, or grind down dry ingredients for meals to name a few. This means your investment will pay off for other uses.

They are also smaller, easy to store, and have less parts to clean which makes maintaining them much easier. You can choose from hand held blenders and choppers, free-standing blenders, or the newest ‘bullet’ blenders taking the market by storm.

Juicers

Juicing gives you a much thinner product than blending as the juice is extracted from the pulp and discarded. It’s an effective way to get the goodness out of your fruit and vegetables in less time than it takes to eat them. It also increases the absorption rate of the nutrients as those behind juicing say that the fibre isn’t in the way to slow it down.

Thin juice is easy on the digestive system as it doesn’t have to do a lot of work to absorb the nutrients from fibre which is good for those with any digestive or bowel issues.

The actual juicers however can be quite large and cumbersome to store as well as being difficult to clean which some may find an issue.

When choosing between a blender or juicer choose the one which best suits your needs, the amount of space you have, how much time you have, and what your goals are. Also, if you are considering juices for health reasons consult your doctor beforehand to gain a professional opinion. Whichever you choose you can rest assured you will be gaining more nutrients and adding extra health to your diet. Come and visit your nearest myBoulevarde centre to find a blender or juicer, we have plenty of staff that will be more than happy to help you such as the guys at Retravision Newman myBoulevarde.