Fresh fruits and vegetables, in addition to being whole, can be enjoyed in the form of juice (fresh), smoothies, or smoothie bowls.
You may not have heard of the latter because it became popular relatively recently, but besides being able to make it at home, it is now also available in some health food restaurants.
Yet not everyone is fully aware of the difference between the three and which is most useful. The answer to this question is in the following lines.
What is fresh?
Fresh juice is freshly squeezed juice from fruits and/or vegetables, for which you need a juicer. When juicing, the machine separates the water content, vitamins, minerals, and sugars from the raw products, turning them into juice, while the indigestible fibers are separated and discarded as pulp.
Pros of fresh juice
To make a cup of fresh juice, you need a large amount of raw fruits or vegetables - so much that you will hardly eat them all at once. With one cup of fresh juice, you absorb the valuable substances from this amount of products (vitamins and minerals) in a form that is easy for the body to absorb. Something like a concentrated natural nutritional supplement.
Fresh fruits are delicious and most people like them. They are a good alternative for those who don't like raw fruits and vegetables to compensate for their lack in their diet. I have a friend who doesn't like anything green in her salad, but she doesn't mind drinking green juice a day. Still, it's much better than nothing!
Fresh juices are also a very suitable drink for active athletes because they provide a concentrated portion of micronutrients without actively engaging in digestion. Personally, I drink a glass of green fresh juice with lots of leafy greens almost every workout.
Cons of fresh fruit
The main disadvantage of fresh juice is that when juicing products, the fiber remains in the pulp. This makes the finished juice much less filling than a smoothie or whole fruits/vegetables. However, in addition to filling up, fiber has other important roles. It is rich in prebiotics and supports our intestinal health. By removing the fiber, we also lose prebiotics. Fiber slows down the absorption of sugars into the blood and prevents spikes in blood sugar and insulin – something that inevitably happens if you drink fruit juice or those made from vegetables with a high sugar content such as carrots and beets.
Another significant disadvantage of making fresh juice at home is that it takes a lot of time – from preparing the products (washing, peeling, cutting), through juicing to cleaning the machine. Most often, the last step is the slowest. An option to save a little time is to prepare a larger amount of juice and store it in the refrigerator in a vacuum jug, which retains its beneficial properties for 24 to 48 hours.
Another option is to buy ready-made fresh juice, which is now available in many places. The problem is that most of these places mainly make fruit juices and often the fruits and vegetables are put into the machine together with the peels, which is not a very good approach, especially for citrus fruits, because of the substances used to treat their peels.
How to prepare fresh juice?
If you want to take advantage of the benefits of fresh juice, prefer mainly vegetable fresh juices. The most useful are green fresh juices, the base of which can be cucumber or raw zucchini, combined with 2-3 bunches of leafy greens (parsley or spinach), a little ginger, and 1 green apple for taste.
If you have the opportunity, use a pressing juicer, which does not oxidize the products used, and retains most of the nutrients, as well as a small portion of the fiber in the finished juice.
Drink your juice slowly. It is important to remember that only water is water and that everything else that is not pure water is food, i.e. subject to digestion, and digestion begins in the mouth. It is true that juice, as well as smoothies, which you will read about in a moment, are mechanically ground, but the chemical breakdown of carbohydrate sugar chains begins in the mouth under the influence of salivary enzymes. Therefore, it is important to drink fresh juice slowly, sip by sip, allowing it to mix with saliva.
What is a smoothie?
Smoothies are made in a blender. The fruits and/or vegetables are chopped and placed in the blender jug, mixed with liquid (water, milk, fresh juice, etc.) and everything is blended into a drink with a smooth texture. Depending on the amount of liquid, the smoothie can be thicker like a smoothie or thinner like nectar, but in both cases, the fiber from the starting products remains inside the drink.
Pros of smoothies
The main difference and advantage of a smoothie over a fresh juice is that it retains the fiber, making it more filling and suitable for people with unstable blood sugar.
Separately, the nutritional content of a smoothie can be increased by adding:
- different proteins – hemp, pea, yogurt, etc.;
- healthy fats – nuts, seeds, tahini or coconut oil;
- different superfoods such as cocoa, nuts, seeds, maca, goji berries, etc.
When blending products, part of their mechanical breakdown is done by the machine, making them more easily broken down and absorbed by the body.
Smoothies are easy and quick to make, making them perfect for a quick breakfast on busy weekdays. Washing the blender also takes 1-2 minutes, unlike the longer cleaning of a juicer.
Cons of smoothies
The main downside of a smoothie is that it can easily become a calorie bomb. Imagine a combination of a banana with strawberries, tahini, coconut oil, 1-2 dates, and milk. If you add more fruit (raw or dried) to your smoothie, you may end up consuming more calories than you can burn.
Separately, I have seen people order smoothies as a drink for lunch and even dinner. However, a smoothie is not a drink. It can be a complete meal in itself, suitable for a morning or afternoon snack. When you order or make a smoothie to complement another meal, you are practically eating a double portion of food!
How to make a smoothie?
First, get a quality blender. A good smoothie is made with a blender with 800W or more.
When choosing ingredients for your smoothie, don't overdo it with the amount of fruit, as fruit contains a lot of sugar. Combine it with some protein and healthy fat from the examples I gave above, so you can reduce the effect of sweetness on your blood sugar and feel fuller for longer. Also, try a pure vegetable smoothie - it turns out like a raw cream soup.
Consider the smoothie as a separate meal, not as a drink with another main meal. Be careful with the amount. A filling smoothie can be in the range of 250-400 ml, not a liter.
Just like juice, remember to drink your smoothie slowly and in small sips, holding each sip in your mouth to improve digestion and absorption!
What is a smoothie bowl?
This concept is relatively new and some of you may not have heard of it. The popularity of the smoothie bowl has grown over the past two years thanks to Instagram, where thousands of food bloggers are competing to share beautiful photos of smoothie bowls. Type “smoothie bowl” on Instagram and get ready to experience a true culinary feast for the eyes! Some of these bowls are so exquisite that they look more like works of art than something to eat!
Essentially, a smoothie bowl is a very thick smoothie that is eaten with a spoon instead of drinking through a straw. The base is usually pureed fruit in combination with yogurt and/or tahini, superfoods, etc. The thick consistency allows for various toppings to be added on top – from additional fruit, nuts, and seeds to chocolate chips, where the line with dessert is blurred. Overall, due to the thickness and the variety of toppings, a smoothie bowl is much more filling than a regular smoothie. However, its usefulness depends mostly on the composition and balance.
Pros of the smoothie bowl
The main advantage of such a bowl is that if it is prepared with the right ingredients, it can provide long-lasting satiety and an abundance of beneficial nutrients: from fruits with low sugar content and many antioxidants such as berries, cherries, apricots, and others, through green leafy vegetables, to beneficial and omega-3 essential fatty acid-rich fats such as avocados, walnuts, hemp seeds, and chia seeds.
Besides being quite tasty, smoothie bowls allow a person to show their culinary imagination when preparing them and enjoy their food with all their senses.
Cons of the smoothie bowl
As I mentioned, however, someone can get too carried away with the toppings and turn an otherwise healthy bowl into a high-calorie dessert. Some of the pictures you'll find online are of bowls decorated with cookies and even whole chocolate or are in strange phosphorescent colors, achieved in some obscure way, or look so intricately decorated that you wonder who could spend so much time on a snack!
Late last year, the website Kitchn addressed the topic of overly-topped and decorated smoothie bowls in a post titled: Can We All Just Admit That Smoothie Bowls Are Big Fat Lies?
However, as long as you don't go to extremes, a smoothie bowl is a good idea for diversifying your breakfast, especially during the summer months!
How to make a smoothie bowl?
Just like for a classic smoothie, you need a blender for a smoothie bowl, but the jug with the S-shaped blade on a food processor will also work.
You can make the base of your smoothie bowl with frozen fruit (pre-freezing makes the consistency creamier), add some leafy greens like spinach, and thicken it with healthy fats like yogurt tahini, or avocado. You may need a small amount of liquid like plant-based milk or a few ice cubes to puree the ingredients. The finished base is very similar to ice cream and is just as delicious!
Once you pour it into a bowl, you can add various toppings, but it's best to limit yourself to berries, nuts, and seeds and avoid sources of added sugar. Thanks to the pods, the bowl is sweet enough and without additives!
And, of course, I remind you that such a bowl is good to eat with pleasure, chewing each bite for better absorption!
