Blending vs Juicing – Which is Best for Weight Loss
This is John Kohler with discountjuicers.com.
Today I have another exciting episode for
you. What we’re going to do today is discuss
the differences between blending and juicing,
specifically for weight loss but this applies,
you know, to the main differences and I’m
going to go over the pros and cons of each
one and show you guys what each machine does.
Now, some people confuse blending and juicing
or smoothies and they use the terms interchangeably.
Nothing could be further form the truth. They’re
totally different, although you can use your
blender to juice if you use like another thing
to strain it out and you could also use your
juicer like a blender to basically mix the
juice and pulp together to make kind of make
a blended or mushed up mashed up mixture.
So, each of these machines in my opinion have
their benefits and if you’re going for the
weight loss, what I recommend over all else
is, you know, eat the foods that are going
to best benefit your body, and those are the
nutrient dense foods. The nutrient dense foods
are the foods that you’re seeing on the table
here. Fruits and vegetables. Today we have
some arugula, some oranges, and some cucumbers.
So, these are the foods we want to include
and you want to get away fro the junk food,
the fast food, the McDonalds, eating out of
restaurants. You wan to eat as much fruit,
fresh fruits and vegetables, as possible,
whether you’re doing it in a juicer, whether
you’re doing it in a blender. No matter what,
in my opinion, as long as you move your diet
in the right direction and eat more fruits
and vegetables, you’re going to be more off
better than the person that doesn’t. So, if
that means you got to blend and not juice
because you got a $25 blender form Wal-Mart
and that gets more fruits and vegetables in
you, that’s fine. If you got a juicer, hey,
I mean, I think that’s even better. In any
case, let’s go over the differences between
them and I’m actually going to produce juice
and a smoothie in the blender in each one
while I go over the pros and cons. So, I already
explained actually what I got and the first
we’re going to do is prepare the produce.
WE can throw in our baby arugula into the
juicer as is. We can also through the cucumber
into both as is. The oranges, you know, you
can’t put the whole things through the machine,
but that being said, the orange coloring on
the skin has some non-digestible chemicals
that taste bad and will also give you gas,
bloating, and belching. So, if you don’t want
that I highly encourage you guys to cut off
the orange coloring. I’m actually going to
do that first using a little knife here, and
were just going to go ahead and but off that
orange coloring, and we’re going to leave
all that white pit. The white pith is where
most of the (unclear) is, and where the nutrients
are actually contained in the orange but how
many people actually peel their orange and
eat only the inside and not the white pith?
So, doing it and cutting your orange this
way, you’re going to preserve and get the
most nutrition in your juice or your smoothie.
So, as I cut this off, what I want to talk
to you about is first the machines that we’re
using. So, first, today what we’re using is
an Omega Vert 338 juicer. This is a slow speed
juicer. It runs at 80 RPMs and that’s a slow
speed, and because it’s slow it’s going to
be quiet and it’s going to preserve the most
nutrition in the juice. Some juicers run up
to 10000, 11000 RPMs, and that’s a lot faster,
and they tend to oxidize juice more. Let’s
go ahead and flip over to the blender now.
So, the blender that we’re using today is
the VitaMix TurboBlend VS, and this is the
one that I recommend if you want to, you know,
get a really good blender. You know, all blenders
are not created equal. You know, all blenders
will blend up, you know, basically a liquid,
but the VitaMix will do it all together definitely
because it runs at such high RPMs. 27000 RPM.
That’s magnitudes faster than the 80 RPM juicer,
and it has fairly sharp blades to literally
fractionate and cut up and micronize all the
ingredients that you put inside of it. If
you use a standard blender from, say, Wal-Mart,
that’s not running so fast and the blades
aren’t so sharp, it tends to leave large chunks
and when you leave large chunks in whatever
you’re drinking, you’re not going to get optimal
digestion out of it. These are 2 appliances
that I recommend for juicing or blending,
but they will process a wide variety of things,
although there are specialized varieties of
juicers if you want to juice certain items.
So, yea, big differences between to store-bought
blenders and the heavy-duty commercial blender
for people that really are into and what to
get the maximum nutrition out of the food.
On the juicer side, same thing. You can buy
an inexpensive juicer but they’re not going
to work the same. Most inexpensive juicers
are actually called centripetal ejection style
juicers, and those are the ones that run at
high speeds and they oxidize your food more,
and I don’t know about you but I’m eating
for the nutrition, not just for the mouth
feel, not just for the texture, although that’s
definitely important, too. I want to get the
most nutrition out of my food, because, you
know, in the end you are what you eat and
absorb, and I want to out the healthiest foods
in my body so that I can be as healthy as
possible, and to do that, we need to have
the right tools, and that’s why I prefer both
of these machines. We’re just going to go
ahead and cut the peel off this guy and then
we’ll be back at you to discuss the pros and
cons of both blending and juicing, ’cause
there’s no one that is clearly the winner,
and which one is truly the best. Now we’re
ready to start using the appliances and share
with you guys the pros and cons in each of
them. So, let’s first start with the juicer.
The juicer is really easy to use and runs
at the slowest speed and is relatively quiet.
We got to go ahead and cut the orange up a
little bit smaller so that they will fit into
the feed shoot of the machine. Now we’re going
to turn the machine on and start juicing.
Now, one of the pros of juicing is that you
can actually fit more produce or get more
produce in you. For example, we’re putting
5 ounces of baby arugula, but in some juice
I’ll out literally 1 whole pound of leafy
greens into the juice, and that’ll literally
turn into about 1, 1 ¼ cups of fresh vegetables
juice, so that way you can get al lot more
of the nutrition, except the fiber. Let’s
go ahead and out some of the arugula into
the juicer here. What the juicer literally
does, it literally compresses down and squeezes
with the omega action on the juicer to extract
the rich nutrition form the juice that’s contained
within the water. Now, it removes all the
fiber, so for some that may be a benefit.
I believe it is a benefit because, you know,
our bodies are nothing more or less than a
juice extractor. We put stuff in our mouths,
we’re supposed to chew it really well into
a mush and then swallow it, and then guess
what? Our body can only absorb nutrition that’s
in a liquid state with the little philis that’s
inside our intestines. So, if something not
in a liquid state or broken down finely enough,
you know, it’s just going to go right through
us and not get absorbed. That’s where the
juicer comes in. It’s going to literally turn
the food into that liquid and the fiber, and
think about it. When we eat something, out
one side of us comes the liquid, and out the
other side comes out fiber, so both are fairly
important. Let’s go ahead and put an orange
in there. So, the first thing is more quantity.
You could literally choose to pack a pound
or maybe even 2 pounds of leafy greens, which
is the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet,
so that you can get more nutrition in you.
Another thing that’s important with the juicer
because it is removing the fiber, and that’s
what our bodies should be doing if working
properly, is that you may get better digestion.
Especially after years and years of maybe
not eating the right stuff, peoples digestive
systems are not working properly, and if something
is in the liquid state it’s most likely to
be digested and digested the easiest. Another
things about juicing is that it’s actually
one of the best ways to get an instant shot
of energy. Some people say that within 30
minutes of juicing and drinking the juice,
you’re going to absorb the nutrition in the
juice. Another benefit of juicing is that
it’s actually fairly quiet. I mean, I’m talking
here over the juicer and it’s running fine,
and it’s not hat loud. So, say you’ve got
to prepare your juice or smoothie in the morning,
you know, the juicer won’t wake up the other
family members in your family. As you can
see, we’re almost done juicing this baby arugula
here. It’s doing very well. We’ve got a whole
bunch of juice and all the fibers coming out
over here. I mean, this is the hard indigestible
fiber and this stuff’s actually fairly dry.
GO ahead and put some more orange in there.
So, one of the things I like about the low
speed juicer is it’s more similar to our teeth.
I mean, if we were to have to just use our
teeth to chew all this up, then we could be
a juicer. We could literally squeeze all the
juice out with our teeth at low RPMs or running
really slow, and just spit all the pulp out.
Normally you just swallow it and you let our
bodies separate the liquid from the pulp.
So, it runs at a slow speed, and I like that
a lot because it’s more similar to our body.
With the blender, it runs at a high speeds,
which, you know, not as close to what our
body does. That being said, we are separating
the pulp out form the juice here. If we wanted
to have the pulp in, you could actually just
take this pulp and mix it in your juice and
stir it all up if that’s what you desire,
then you’re going to get the pulp and everything
at a low speeds so it’s not going to degrade
the nutrition as much. So, another big pro
for juicing, in my opinion, is that places
like the Garson Therapy, and you guys have
heard of that, they use juicing to potentially
heal people from their ailments. So, people
with cancer go to Garson Therapy, do the Garson
Therapy in Mexico, and they just literally
drink juice to get these people better from
incurable diseases in the body. So, I don’t
know anybody that’s doing that with the blended
smoothies. Most of the places that really
heal people focus on the juice because you
get all the nutrition out in the easiest way
to absorb. I guess a few cons for juicing
is that, number 1, it removes the fiber. Yes,
we need fibers in our body to keep us clean
on the inside, although there is some fiber
in this juice, especially if you use the Omega
Verde. It makes some of the pulpous juices,
which you can filter out or you can leave
in. Another con of juicing, as you can see,
we used all this produce, and we got a whole
bunch of juice and we also got a whole lot
of pulp. So, you know, you can burn through
a lot of produce very quickly and a lot of
it’s going to be in the pulp, so I recommend
you get a good quality juicer that’s going
to make a fairly dry pulp, like the Omega
Verde does. Finally the other con if juicing
is that it can make more time. As you saw,
it can take some time to prepare the produce,
and to put it in took some time, and now cleaning
this juicer will take some time as well. This
juicer takes me about 3 minutes to clean,
and it’s one of the most easiest to clean
juicers that I know of. That sums up the pros
and cons of juicing. Next let’s go over to
the blender and talk more about the blending
and why it may be better than juicing but
also why it may not be. What we’re doing is
first we’re going to put everything in the
blender. So, you know, if we put the whole
orange in there and turn the machine on, it
may kind of blend it up, but t’s not really
going to do it all the way, so what’s better
than that is that we need to cut this into
small pieces so that the blender can actually
pulverize all of it. So, I actually recommend
when putting things into the blender to do
it in the proper ordering. So, its best, when
you fill up your bender, I don’t like to use
a blender or add water to a blender, which
is actually in my opinion a con of blending
because you’re diluting the nutritious foods,
I like to only use the fresh fruits and vegetables
in my blended or smoothie mixes. So, I don’t
like to add water. Many people may have to
add water to make their blender work properly
if it’s not a high power blender. So, that’s
just going to dilute the nutrition that you
could be getting out of the food. So, you
can see here that we just chopped all the
oranges in to little small pieces and this
way the blender is going to be able to be
more effective and blend this stuff up. The
next we’re going to do is we’re going to go
ahead ad chop up the cucumbers into little
pieces so the blender can blend this up as
well, and yes, you can put in the seeds in
the blender. It will pulverize those as long
as you have a high power blender. Now, if
you don’t have a high power blender, that
seed may come out whole, you know, when you’re
drinking your blended mixture or your smoothie.
Once I get all the varied liquid items into
the blender, I like to turn the blender on,
and that bends it right up. The next thing
I do after I have the liquid is I’ll finally
add the greens at then end. So, once again,
we’ve got 5 ounces of baby arugula greens
here. I like arugula because it’s in the braska
family. The braska family plants have shown
that they may contain things like cancer fighter.
They have a lot of phytonutrients and phytochemicals
that can be very healthy to eat. You know,
once of my focuses on eating a healthy diet
is focusing on fruits and vegetables that
have the most nutrient in them and have the
least amount of calories, and this way, you
know, if you’re eating glow calories but high
nutrition, you’re feeding your body everything
it needs. Most Americans eating junk food
or, you know, a lot of junk food and processed
food and too many animal products that have
a lot of calories but not a lot of nutrient
in them, and yes, even arugula has protein
in them. I mean, think about where does a
cow get its protein? If it’s out in the range,
it’s eating the grass, and that’s it get its
protein. So, we can eat these greens too,
if we eat efficient quantities of them. So,
now that I’ve got the arugula added in, we
got to go ahead and turn this blender on.
Alright, so we’ve got that blended up and
it’s actually a lot quicker than the juicing.
So, actually let’s get into the pros of the
blending, and the pro is that it’s much faster.
It’s also easier to clean because instead
of a lot of parts, you just have 1 carafe
to clean, maybe your cutting board and whatnot.
So, another thing I like about the blending
is that you’re going to get the whole foods.
You’re going to get eh fiber and all, and
fiver, yes, definitely is important in you’re
diet. Another things about the blending is
that it may reduce the detox symptoms because
now you’re not just getting straight nutrition
in the body, you’re getting it mixed with
some fiber and your body has to work to get
those nutrients out so that fiber is going
to slow down the release of things like sugars,
if you’re blending your fruits, and actually
I recommend blending your fruits but juicing
you’re vegetables. Another things that is
a pro of blending is that you’re going to
use less produce. So, let’s go ahead and show
you guys what this made. We got literally
a blended green smoothie, and we’re going
t pour this off and this is a nice fairly
thin mixture but it’s a lot thicker ’cause
it contains all the fiber, and, you know,
all the produce we used, which was 2 small
cucumbers, 2 oranges, and some arugula, looks
like we got it to about right 3 cups of blended
smoothies there, and if we got over to the
juice side and pour this guy out, it’s a nice
thinner consistency, more like a water and
we check that out, and we don’t account for
the foam on the inside, we actually got 2.5
cups. So, we’re losing a half cup, you know,
because the half cup is right here inside
the fiber. So, as you can see, you use less
produce to get more. So, the fiber may be
important to you to fill up. Now, another
thing I want to mention quickly is that you
can do a hybrid. So, you can juice you’re
vegetables, so you can make a vegetable juice,
and put in the blender, maybe blend up some
fruits with it to keep the fiber in the fruit.
So, you could actually do a little bit of
both, if you want. So, next let’s get into
the cons of blending. So, the cons of blending,
number one, as you heard, it’s loud. It can
be loud. I mean, this blade is spinning at
incredibly fast speeds, and that, you know,
can wake up your sleeping family members if
you’re making your blended mixtures in the
morning. Another thing about the blending
is that because its running at 27000 RPM,
80 RPM, 27000’s really really fast, and the
faster it spins the faster the RPMs, the more
it’s oxidizing your food. So, if you look
really closely at this, I mean, this one’s
actually a lot more oxidized, but it also
fluffs it up and adds air. So, the oxidation
is basically like what happens when you scratch
your car and it gets rusted. That’s the nutrients
degrading and, you know, lowering them, and
besides lowering the food, it also adds air
to this mixture. So, part of the reason why
this is more is because it also has air in
there, and when you’re drinking more air,
guess what? You’re going to get more gas,
belching, and potentially bloating as well.
Another con of blending is that if you don’t
have a high-powered blender you have to add
water, and as I mentioned before, that’s diluting
the mixture down. I mean, this is just 100%
nutrition from foods, and in some blenders
you may have to add a nice amount of water
to make it more liquidy. So, that’s the pros
and cons of both blending and juicing. Now
I’m going to get o try my delicious mixtures.
I think I’ll try the juice first. Wow, that
actually tastes quite good. All you really
taste is like the orange juice. So, you taste
like a little bit watered down orange juice
and you taste some greens in there, but definitely
tastes really good. Now we’re going to go
for the smoothie. It’s a lot thicker. More
like a really thick soup. To me, you know,
I like the juice better, but you may like
the thicker mixture better than the thinner
mixture. I like it thinner, it goes down easier,
you could probably juice more of it and drink
more of the juice before you got full whereas
you couldn’t drink as much smoothies. So,
like I talked about in the pros and cons,
if you don’t have a lot of money, maybe you
can’t buy a lot of produce, then maybe the
blending is better for you but if that’s not
a concern to you, then you’re going to do
what you need to do to get the nutrition in
you. I get the juicer to take out all the
fiber and of course eat a big salad at night.
This is what I prefer and think is more beneficial
for weight loss. As a matter of fact, here’s
a really good movie you should watch if you
haven’t’ already. It’s called Fat, Sick, and
Nearly Dead. You go to hulu.com, h-u-l-u-.com
and search for Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.
You can watch this documentary film where
a chap from Australia comes to the US and
actually lives on juices and he was fat, sick,
and nearly dead, and over them if just drinking
fresh juices and nothing else, you know, he
lost weight and got healthier. So, I’m confident
that you guys can do it, too. Whether you
want to juice or you want to blend, both are
excellent. So, I have excess weight to lose,
I would personally go with the juice and maybe
get some blended smoothies in there. The main
thing you want to remember is that you want
to get away form the processed foods. Any
way, in my opinion, where you can include
more fresh fruits and vegetables, whether
it’s juiced, blended, or eaten in your mouth
and being chewed really well and turned into
a mush, is being far better than eating any
processed foods or animals foods out there,
and that’s my main message to you. So, if
you’re really into it, get a juicer, get a
blender, so that you have the flexibility
of doing both. Some days I feel like only
juice, some day I feel like blended, some
days I’m running late, out the door, and I
got to use the blender ’cause I don’t have
time to do the juicer, but whatever the way
I’m doing it, I know I’m getting the best
nutrition on earth by using these 2 appliances.
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode learning
about the differences between blending and
juicing. Once again, my name is John Kohler
with discountjuicer.com. Be sure to visit
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