Why on earth do people use a "juicer"???

[Dannyboy1]

I just throw everything in a blender with OJ and protein powder. Why would you want to drink just the juice of the vegetables when you can drink the whole thing and get ALL the vitamins and fiber, etc?

[andrew112]

Originally Posted by Dannyboy1

I just throw everything in a blender with OJ and protein powder. Why would you want to drink just the juice of the vegetables when you can drink the whole thing and get ALL the vitamins and fiber, etc?

The only reason I can see for using a juicer would be for a vegetable juice fast where one only drinks vegetable juices and does not eat or drink anything else.

If one is already eating solid foods though, I do not see the point of using a juicer when one can just eat the vegetables whole. When vegetables are juiced, a lot of dietary fiber is thrown away because the juice does not contain dietary fiber.

[Dimond]

Matt Monarch's article explains it best:
Raw Spirit | by Matt Monarch

[Dannyboy1]

Originally Posted by andrew112

The only reason I can see for using a juicer would be for a vegetable juice fast where one only drinks vegetable juices and does not eat or drink anything else.

If one is already eating solid foods though, I do not see the point of using a juicer when one can just eat the vegetables whole. When vegetables are juiced, a lot of dietary fiber is thrown away because the juice does not contain dietary fiber.

And, actually, a blender is faster because it's much easier to clean.

[Lenie]

when I first got a juicer that was my main question.

So - I just scooped all the pulp and put it on top of my drink. Needless to say, I felt really, really clean the next day.

Kindof like that guy on TV, Klee... I love it when he describes the peristaltic waves, and kindof waves his hands to demonstrate.

When fasting or doing mini fasts, then I can see using the juicer. Otherwise, all I ever need is a blender.

[Barcs]

It is definitely healthier to eat most fruits and vegetables whole, but you can make some very tasty (and still healthy) drinks with the juicer. I mostly eat fruits and veggies whole, but occasionally I'll make a nice juice concoction for the week. The reason I bought one was for fasting, intially, but I enjoyed a lot of the drinks I made from it, so I continued to make them every once in a while.

[Coven]

I love my juicer. I find it's an easy way to make orange juice without the pulp. I prefer not to have all the added sugars that I'd get from store bought orange juice. Organic juice is more expensive than my making my own. I guess it's a personal preference.

[bluedragon]

That article on the Raw Spirit website seems pretty convincing. I was aware that chewing food has an important role in digestion due to the saliva.
What does everyone else think about drinking juices instead of smoothies?

[funchy]

Originally Posted by Dimond

Matt Monarch's article explains it best:
Raw Spirit | by Matt Monarch

A good article. Thanks for posting.

I do wish he would cite some of his sources. Some of the things didn't quite sound right, and I wish I could do further reading to get a better understanding of what he means.

[bluedragon]

Yea, me too, because if he is right, then it means drinking smoothies is actually worse than eating the fruit. Unless you chew the smoothie, which would be pretty wired.

[Dan.Linehan]

How can you chew a liquid?

[Didi]

From reading that article I get the distinct impression that humans are not meant to subsist on a raw food diet, unless we, like cattle, spend large amounts of time "grazing" in order to offset the high costs of digestion and relatively low nutritional yield (on a weight basis). So enter the juices! In our age of technology and whatnot, juicing is a fantastic way to inject pure goodness into you; however, juicing is a fairly recent innovation. The article stresses that juicing is an extremely important facet of the raw food diet, and notes a high proportion of people with deficiencies (tooth decay, hair loss) from the raw food diet. How could humanity have possibly survived on a raw food diet before the advent of the juicer? It would have simply taken too much effort.

I don't know exactly what my point is here, I just want people to be careful. Please consider the harm that a poorly executed radical diet can do to you and compare it to the "harm" of eating a conventional diet. There are hundreds of millions of people eating non-raw food diets, and the vast majority are doing just fine.

[Dimond]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

How can you chew a liquid?

Very easily. I do it all the time.

Didi, you don't need a juicer at all to be raw. Or even a blender for that matter. It makes raw easier and healthier doing one or both, but it could be done without if necessary. Raw is and always will be the ideal diet. But like any diet, it needs to be done correctly for the individual or problems can occur.

[bluedragon]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

How can you chew a liquid?

Well, you don't chew it for the purpose of breaking it apart, like you chew solid food, but merely for the purpose of insalivation, so that digestion can occur correctly once the blended drink has riched the stomach. That's how I understand it but I don't know if he is right. I think it makes sense, since blended juice doesn't exist in nature, and it would be very difficult to prepare with stone-age tools. If you squeeze an orange or a lemon, what you get is juice.

[missing]

Originally Posted by Didi

From reading that article I get the distinct impression that humans are not meant to subsist on a raw food diet, unless we, like cattle, spend large amounts of time "grazing" in order to offset the high costs of digestion and relatively low nutritional yield (on a weight basis). So enter the juices! In our age of technology and whatnot, juicing is a fantastic way to inject pure goodness into you; however, juicing is a fairly recent innovation. The article stresses that juicing is an extremely important facet of the raw food diet, and notes a high proportion of people with deficiencies (tooth decay, hair loss) from the raw food diet. How could humanity have possibly survived on a raw food diet before the advent of the juicer? It would have simply taken too much effort.

I don't know exactly what my point is here, I just want people to be careful. Please consider the harm that a poorly executed radical diet can do to you and compare it to the "harm" of eating a conventional diet. There are hundreds of millions of people eating non-raw food diets, and the vast majority are doing just fine.

well I'm no raw-foodist and think your warnings are something to consider. However, in regards to how humanity survived raw before the juicer, perhaps our nourishment requirements were not as great? Between toxins, depleted soils, high stress lifestyles, etc etc. we put quite a load on our bodies that simply didn't exist back before juicers. We need new technology like juicers in order to combat the negative effects of... our other technology.

[inquiringmind4u]

One thing I can add to the discussion:

I've had a Juiceman Jr. juicer and a German-engineered Breville monster juicer. The Breville has this massive "engine" and a Mercedez Benz-like precision juicing "rotor". The rotor has super-sharp tines a lot like sharks' teeth.

I did a side-by-side comparison of the two (using a postage scale to measure overall juice yield - I'm part nerdy engineer at times!) and noticed something very surprising....

For the most part I just wanted to know which one produced more juice. So I juiced orange and apple pieces, dividing evenly between the two juicers the amount of fruit I was starting with.

The Breville produced 6% more juice by weight. Not a big surprise, especially considering it cost twice as much when I bought it. But here's the surprising part:

The juice from the Breville had a very noticeable red color, whereas the juice from the Juiceman Jr. was pretty much clear / orange'ish. The reason was pretty evident: The super-sharp tines on the Breville coupled with its rotational speed and overall design was somehow tearing through the skin / cell walls of the apple's skin to release the red pigment into the pulpless juice.

What I think is safe to conclude is that the vitamins & minerals of the items you are juicing (assuming you are using a high-quality juicer) are going to be in a much more accessible form having been released from within the plants/fruits cellular walls.

The human chewing action is probably able to do this to some extent too, but I think intuitively you can deduce that the juicer will release far more vitamins & minerals than the chewing action alone.

The problem though is that you lose the healthy fiber and the cleaning action on your teeth that comes from biting into and chewing the items in their raw / natural state, plus you get that massive rush of fruit sugar straight into your system.

Maybe Lenie's post was onto something when he suggested scooping out the pulp and putting it back into his juice drink. That way you get all the fiber, plus all the vitamins and minerals too.

[Lenie]

Maybe Lenie's post was onto something when he suggested scooping out the pulp and putting it back into his juice drink. That way you get all the fiber, plus all the vitamins and minerals too.

*looks down at 44Ds*

[bluedragon]

One thing I don't understand is why it is it bad if the fiber from smoothies isn't digested but merely swallowed - as far as I know, fiber from fruit and vegetables is mostly insoluble fiber anyway - it isn't supposed to be digested - it's purpose is to aid digestion - to help in intestinal transit.
Maybe smoothies and juices are equally valuable, but they have different advantages, what do you think?

[Lenie]

agree with you there, bluedragon.

It probably isn't considered 'bad' so much as not staying true to form. I think fasters prefer to strictly fast and not mix it up with eating during those times.

Learned something new from Steve, though. I thought juice feasting was the same as juice fasting. Like it was a cutesy term - the juice is so tasty you just called it feasting. Now I see it also involves satisfying your hunger, just with fresh juices. Hm.

[Rawvolta]

It is best to juice at the first stage of becoming raw vegan or at the point when one is LEAVING the SAD diet.
People are to toxic to absorb all the nutrients, so what they have to do is use some type of technique that would deliver all the nutrients RIGHT AWAY without putting body into struggle of breaking down the fiber we are talking about.
Juice is like an instant blood cleanser if its green.
bang! and there it is! 20 minutes after we have a nice healthy transfusion!

After one is cleaner juice is still great for cleansing and feasting, but blender keeps all the fiber that the cleaner body can now break down.

One can overdo juicing - we don't know actually that the load of sugars in a juice might be a bit risky.

We won't overdo it with blended drink.

But I am totally opting for juicing at the beginning of changing the diet.
To strip away the bad guys and BUILD THE CLEANER PATH for nutrients.


To Your Health and Success!

[sk8joyful]

Originally Posted by Dannyboy1

I just throw everything in a blender with OJ and protein powder. Why would you want to drink just the juice of the vegetables when you can drink the whole thing and get ALL the vitamins and fiber, etc?

A blender does seem the most reasonable.

Unless someone is cancering... to where they can not tolerate any extra energy-consuming activities, like dealing with fiber, or protein powders, or whathaveyou. -Then juicing, starting with mostly water, can aid the journey from death, to life...

[funchy]

Originally Posted by inquiringmind4u

I did a side-by-side comparison of the two (using a postage scale to measure overall juice yield - I'm part nerdy engineer at times!) and noticed something very surprising....

Thanks for sharing your findings. It sounds like you know the machines you own well. Do you feel a juicer is worth the money? I am curious about juicers but not able to afford a decent one right now. I'm making my juices in the blender.


From my experiences with the blender, it does do a far better job breaking food down into the tiniest bits, far better than I can ever do chewing.

I am interested in finding out more about how a juicer or blender fruit is digested compared to one chewed, since saliva does aid in digestion but isn't really mixed in with juice much. Anyone have more information on this?

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by inquiringmind4u

The juice from the Breville had a very noticeable red color, whereas the juice from the Juiceman Jr. was pretty much clear / orange'ish. The reason was pretty evident: The super-sharp tines on the Breville coupled with its rotational speed and overall design was somehow tearing through the skin / cell walls of the apple's skin to release the red pigment into the pulpless juice.

What I think is safe to conclude is that the vitamins & minerals of the items you are juicing (assuming you are using a high-quality juicer) are going to be in a much more accessible form having been released from within the plants/fruits cellular walls.

Great point -- and great link in your sig too! Thank you..