Blending fruit better than juicing to preserve nutrients — Expert
An expert has said that if you like drinking your fruit, blending is better than juicing in order to preserve nutrients. He said juicing removes more than just the fibre.
According to a nutritionist, Najib Panda, when you juice fruits and vegetables, you leave the liquid portion only and remove the fibrous materials.
On the other hand, when you blend your fruit, you get it all, that is, all the nutrients including pulps and fibre that make up the whole fruits or vegetables.
Fruits are important sources of dietary fibre, vitamins especially vitamin C and antioxidants.
Panda said, “Fruit also protects us against numerous diseases, beautifies our body, boosts our immunity as well as provide us with basic energy.”
He said functions of Vitamin C include, helping immune cells attack pathogens, clearing old immune cells from site infection and helping to maintain the skin, which is external barrier against infection.
The nutritionist also said, “The difference between fruit juicing and blending is that fruit juicing contains more concentrated amounts of vitamins and nutrients, contains more sugar, and lacks or has inadequate dietary fibre.
“While fruit blending contains all the nutrients, the fibrous part of fruits remains intact and contains polyphenols phytonutrients loaded with antioxidants,” he said.
Najib said the benefits of taking blended fruit over juiced fruit include the following:
Dietary fibre: blended fruits contain more dietary fibre compared to fruit juice with little or no fibre. Fibre is incredibly important for diabetes (fibre lower insulin requirements, decrease serum cholesterol, delays glucose absorption) and also aids in proper digestion and good health that is, feed the life-friendly bacteria in the colon and soften stool.
Fibre also plays an important role in bulking up stool and improving regular bowel movements. Gut flora digests fibre and makes short-chain fatty acids.
The short-chain fatty acid has a number of health promoting effects.
He said it also inhibits the growth of bad bacteria, increases mineral absorption, improves insulin sensitivity, and also lower’s colon cancer risk. Antioxidants
Panda said blended fruits also contain antioxidants and has lower sugar content.
“Polyphenols phytonutrients present are loaded with antioxidants which neutralize free radicals as a result of oxidation that prevents many chronic diseases.
“Polyphenols are a group of chemical substances found in plants, characterised by the presence of more than one phenolic unit. The main classes of polyphenols are flavonoids.
“The sugar content in fruit blended is lower compared to fruit juice. The pulp, skin and fibre help to increase the quantity of the drink which fills you up and reduces the caloric intake,” he said.
He said research strongly supports polyphenol’s role in the prevention of degenerative diseases particularly cancers, cardiovascular diseases.
Fruit juicing is less nutritional in preservation because it contains more sugar which can raise the blood glucose level more especially in patients with diabetes, he added.
The expert advised people to blend rather than juice because most of the polyphenol’s phytonutrients in fruit and vegetables contain fibre and are good for one’s health.
However, he added that juicing is appropriate for some diseases like severe diarrhoea, gastritis etc because a low residue diet is recommended.