I love my blender for making smoothies, but I have always been hesitant about buying a juicer. I’ll give you three reasons:
- Money waste
- Food waste
- I believe blending is healthier
Booster Juice is a go-to when I’m out and about. I order a Green Hornet (basically spinach, celery and carrot) and I watch them add veggies to the juicer, and then add more veggies, and then even more veggies, and I think if I had a juicer at home I couldn’t AFFORD to make veggie juice every day. To my mind it takes a ridiculous amount of food to make juice. Which equates to a ridiculous amount of money. (Plus, I’ll get to later in this post, it takes out the fiber required for sugar processing.)
I make my own version of a Green Hornet at home and I add one carrot, two celery stalks and a handful of spinach with a water base in my blender and hit high for 4 minutes.
It. Tastes. The. Same. And an added bonus — I get the fiber.
I will admit that the juiced version is a smoother liquid closer to the texture of water, whereas the blended version has a thicker texture (psst – it’s the fiber.)
I read in one of Ani Phyo’s books (sorry, I can’t remember which one! I think its Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen) that it takes five oranges to make one cup of orange juice. If we tried to eat five oranges in one sitting we couldn’t. Why? Because of the fiber. What does fiber do? One it fills us up, additionally it slows the rate at which our body processes the natural fruit sugar. (Which, as a side note, is why fruit juice is not good for us — all sugar, no fiber.)
I have several recipe books that have juice recipes, and time and time again I have made those recipes in my blender by reducing the amount of fruit/veggies required for the juicer. I blend a fantastic smoothie every time.
Just my opinion, but I say stretch your grocery budget and waste less food by blending smoothies.
A Flexitarian Journey 