Smoothies vs. Juicing - Which route do you go?
What better way to get more fruits & veggies into your diet than to drink them? But in today's crazy busy world, which route should you go? Do you bulk buy produce and spend hours juicing? Or are the convenience and ease of smoothies a better way to go?
Why Fruits & Vegetables?
Before we jump in to the pros and cons of juicing vs. smoothies, let's take a quick step back. Why are fruits and vegetables so important anyway?
A diet rich in fruits and veggies has scientifically been proven over and over to yield all sorts of great benefits. Harvard's School of Public Health has a great list of studies showing how fruits and veggies contribute to lower blood pressure, help reduce heart disease, and many more.
The key is variety. By combining veggies like spinach and kale, with berries like strawberries and blueberries, you're going to get the best of both worlds. Antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and a lot more.
What's the difference between juicing vs. smoothies?
The short answer is juicing squeezes out the vitamins & nutrients from the produce, while a smoothie blends the whole produce into a liquid. Both are going to contain the vast majority of the nutrients and vitamins. However, the key difference is, smoothies are going to have a LOT more fiber and the plant proteins because you are chopping up the whole thing.
Besides the production of the drink, the other major difference is going to be the time it takes you to produce each one. As an ex-juicer, I can tell you committing to a weekly homemade juicing routine is going to take up serious time. You have to buy all the FRESH produce, you have to clean all the produce, then you have to chop it all up to fit in the juicing machine. And then slowly juice all the ingredients. That's just the beginning, because the real time suck comes when you're done. Cleaning a juicing machine is a royal pain with all the micro filters and parts of the machine that need to be washed.
Homemade smoothies are a bit easy to make. Instead of a juicer you usually use a blender. You still have to buy all the ingredients, but you can usually go with frozen fruits here and fresh veggies. You still have to make the smoothie, but a blender is much faster and you can shove larger pieces in it. You still have the clean up but again, it's a lot faster to just clean the blending cup vs. all the parts of a juicer.
Pros and Cons
Juicing
Pros
- Incredibly mineral & vitamin dense "shot size" glass
- Can juice nearly anything - Kale, carrots, ginger, etc
- Huge flavor bursts if you use the right recipe
- Can be stored in the fridge for later use
Cons
- Labor, Labor, Labor
- Minimal fiber & protein
- Usually very bitter flavors if veggie heavy
Smoothies
Pros
- Fiber, Fiber, & Protein!!
- Much quicker
- More balanced flavors
- Can add extras like chia seeds, nuts, or protein powders
Cons
- Most people add too much fruit
- Still has clean up
- Hard to blend majority of veggies into drinkable consistency
What to choose?
Being now parents to young kids and spending years doing both juicing and blending smoothies - I can honestly tell you smoothies are 99% of the time the way to go. I only opt for juicing when I want a really strong tonic of ginger, beets, and carrots.
This is the entire reason Switchback was created. To take the time and guess work out of making healthy and flavorful smoothies for you and the family. Every Switchback green smoothie mix contains 4+ combined cups of fruits & veggies. Guaranteed to taste great and makes clean up a breeze. Now you can enjoy all the health benefits of a daily smoothie routine, without all the clean up and fuss!
