As a nutritionist, I get instantly interested in all occurring dieting trends. I do research, collect patients’ feedback and sometimes try things myself. For example, last month I did a 30-day keto challenge and was really pleased with this diet as it brought impressive results fairly quickly. To find out more about my Keto experience check out this article. Today though, I want to focus on juicing since it’s become very trendy as well as even more controversial. So, don’t hurry into juicing, read this first.

In the industry of healthy lifestyle eating, there is a clear divide between dieticians and nutritionists – those that are for juicing and those that are against juicing. Without revealing my personal opinion on the topic, I’d like to look at juicing from both angles. Below are my arguments FOR and AGAINST juicing.

PROS OF JUICING

Reason #1

Not a fan of fruits and veggies? Then, juicing was created just for you! If you can’t make yourself eat at least two whole fruits and three vegetables a day, you can certainly do that with juicing and get your daily dose of vitamins. As advice goes, when making juice, try combining differently coloured fruits and vegetables or alternate juices of different colours. This is beneficial because fruits and vegetables of different colours contain different vitamins. To get all of them, mix things up!

Reason #2

Juicing can lower the risk of heart disease and cancer as well as boost the immune system. This is the case with all plant-based food so if you choose juicing, it will be beneficial. Besides, unlike eating whole fruits and vegetables, juicing allows your digestive system to rest considerably since it doesn’t have to work with processing fibre.

Reason #3

Life runs pretty fast these days as we are constantly rushing somewhere. Juicing is a way to eat fast and healthily. It takes no more than 5 minutes to make a glass of juice and approximately the same to consume it. It’s a convenient meal to have on the go if you need to.

CONS OF JUICING

Reason #1

When making juice, you lose some of the essential elements that fruits and vegetables give you. Using a juicing machine, you take away the juice and remove pulp that is rich in fibre. Basically, what you get in your juice is a sweet liquid with sugar and some vitamins. To change that, try adding more vegetables to your juice or put the pulp back into the juice.

Reason #2

Juicing doesn’t come cheap! To juice you need a quality juicer that is generally an expensive device (Quality Juicer prices typically range from $100 to $500). More expensive juicers can usually grind the whole fruit including core and seeds. If you don’t want to spend loads of money on a juicer, you can always use a simple blender. The downside of a blender is that you will get more of a smoothie texture rather than a juice. Add a little bit of water to make your drink more liquid.

Reason #3

Juicing for weight loss can turn out tricky as by only consuming juice you do not receive enough fibre and protein. Due to this, muscle mass loss can occur. Apart from that, only consuming juices is rather hard mentally since you never chew anything and only drink. Research shows that people slip from such harsh diets for something fatty pretty fast.

There is no doubt juicing brings a lot of benefits – it gives you much needed vitamins, lowers the risk of some serious ailments and is fast and easy. On the other hand, juices lack some essential elements of fruit, while a rather expensive device to make juice is needed and dieting on juices can become tricky. As you can see, juicing is rather controversial. I am not going to tell you what to do but I recommend considering the information above while making a careful choice. Find out what’s best for you and consult your specialist should you decide to take up juicing for more than three days.