Juices Vs Smoothies from a guy that sells both!

-Aaron Spivak

 The Lyft driver that picked me up from Pearson a couple days ago was a friendly middle-aged man with a big smile and a positive outlook on life. He started chatting up a storm about his ideas for a holistic healing center, including a sensory deprivation tank with a lazy river (pretty cool I thought). I zoned out for a few minutes with the image in my head of a bunch of lifeless looking bodies bouncing around a lazy river when he interrupted—

“So, what do you do for a living??”

I explained that I own a company that sells Cold-Pressed Juices, Smoothies, Acai Bowls, Vegan desserts and more! His attitude immediately turned from cheerful to serious, and he stated, “Well, I don’t know why anyone would want to throw away all that fiber. My Vitamix doesn’t make any waste.”

I replied, “Smoothies are great too!”  Then silence. He was done talking, and didn’t want to hear what I had to say on the matter. He then turned up the music and we sat in the busy 401 traffic for the remainder of the trip to Toronto. When I exited, I wished him good luck on his future venture. He didn’t even pretend to get out to help me with my luggage.

I wish I could say this attitude isn’t typical, but the truth is many people like to take sides on the matter. Let’s go ahead and look at the differences between juice and smoothies. From a guy who sells both for a living!

Cold Pressed Juice - Revitasize

Juice is the liquid extracted from fruit and vegetables that contain all the good plant stuff like nutrients and {Living} enzymes.

It’s true that when you make juice you discard the flesh of the produce, which contains dietaryfiber. Dietary fibre, when consumed, aids in digestion by passing through the body relatively intact. In some produce, however, a third or more of the fiber is in the juice itself—in the form of soluble fiber. Ingredients with high soluble fibre content include kale, apple, spinach, pineapple, and carrots—which are all very common juicing ingredients. Whether or not a person needs the dietary fiber contained in the plants depends on how much fiber said person is getting as part of their regular diet, and if they need the extra fiber to help with digestion.

The fact that the dietary fiber is removed is also an advantage—and perhaps the single most important aspect of juicing. Normally the body has to work very hard to extract nutrients out of plants, but in the case of juicing, that process has already been started by extracting the liquid from the fibrous plant cells. This allows nutrients to enter the bloodstream in the fastest way possible. Without using much energy from the body!

Superfood Smoothies - Revitasize

A smoothie is a beverage made from the process of blending fruit, vegetable, and liquid (needed in order to blend properly) into a puree. Sometimes seeds, cores, and skin are removed prior to blending.

A smoothie is basically a salad that you can eat through a straw. A person drinking a smoothie is getting all the same great nutrients that one would get from eating fruit and vegetables. Both soluble and dietary fibres are present in a smoothie, as well as all the nutrients and enzymes. As mentioned above, the body does need to work a little harder extracting nutrients from dietary fibre than it does from extracting nutrients from juice.

Smoothies can contain fruit that is difficult or impossible to juice, like mango and banana. It’s also easy to add ingredients like almond butter, cacao powder, or other superfoods. For this reason, smoothies are often more of a meal replacement than a beverage.

It’s worth noting that some smoothie shops add really awful stuff to smoothies, like almond milk with artificial ingredients #fake, fruit powders instead of real fruit, and even pure sugar [You know who you are]. That why at Revitasize we take pride is NEVER adding any artificial juices, sugars or flavours to our smoothies.

There’s no wrong way to eat raw fruit and vegetables

Consuming raw plants is the closest you can get to getting energy directly from the sun (not tanning folks). When it comes to juice vs smoothies, the debate should be turned away from “Which is better?” into “Which do I need right now?” Everyone is different, including our dietary needs and lifestyles.

Personally I love having a mostly nutty (and some greens) smoothie for breakfast like the Maca Power + Spirulina, and green juice throughout the day. I don’t know why exactly, but my body tells me to do it that way. It might be that after 12+ hours of no calorie intake that’s what my body needs. It might just be because I’m hungry. Either way, it feels better to me and as long as what I’m ingesting into my body is made from raw organic fruit and vegetables, any way I do it is fine!

Share your thoughts below!