Juicing vs. smoothies is an issue. For years, I’ve sought a clear distinction between the two, and through experience, I now know.
The first one to gain popularity was juicing. It was popularized through cleverly designed and cast infomercials. In them, you’d be told that juicing is the best thing you could do for your health. “You can lose weight, lower your blood pressure, clear up your complexion, and improve and cure diseases,” they would say.
The theory was that fresh juice, from a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, was more readily able to provide nutrients to your body in the most efficient way. I agree with this.
I juiced for many years and burned through several different machines. Drinking the juice made me feel like I was doing the very best thing for my health, and it also gave me an emotional lift.
I started juicing around 2000. I made this diet change at the same time I was transitioning to becoming a vegetarian. I made the ultimate diet/health lifestyle decision to become a vegan in 2009 after watching several of these documentaries.
The smoothie craze seemed to follow the release of these documentaries that detailed why a plant-based diet was good for your health and why an animal-based diet was responsible for many health problems. I’ve watched countless documentaries on this topic.
Several experts in these documentaries did infomercials about the amazing benefits of superfood smoothies. Others did related presentations on PBS about the transformative characteristics of a plant-based diet. I watched all of these, too. 😀
I began making smoothies around 2012. With a break between juicing and smoothies, I’d estimate that I’ve done both for five years each. Here’s my comparative conclusion.
Juicing vs Smoothies
Juicing pluses
- Slightly greater ability to transfer nutrients to your bloodstream and body.
- Liquid form makes it a bit easier for your body to digest it. (And infinitely easier than an animal-based diet. We are talking minutes vs. hours and days to digest animal flesh.)
- Liquid form makes it a bit easier to drink.
Juicing minuses
- Mountains of wasted plant material.
- Zero to low amounts of fiber left in the juice.
- Cleanup time is extensive due to the number of parts you “must” clean, especially the filter. It gets old fast, and the overall process seems inefficient to me.
- Inability to add key items to your juicing machine like flax seeds, hemp heart seeds, chia seeds, and psyllium husk.
- Extremely low or near zero juice production from important items like kale and spinach.
Smoothie pluses
- Ability to add almost any fruit, vegetable, nut, or seed.
- Clean-up is a snap.
- Nearly as liquefied if you have a good blender.
- Requires minimal effort by your digestive system.
- Zero waste.
- Huge amounts of valuable fiber.
Smoothie minuses
- Louder machine due to its much higher wattage. This is required to pulverize and liquefy the contents.
As you can see, smoothies came out on top.
Best Smoothie Machine
When I started looking for a smoothie machine, the first one I came across was the Vitamix, but I thought it was way too expensive.
Then I came across the Blendtec. Fancy name but too expensive as well.
I strongly considered the NutriBullet, but I did not like its limited smoothie-creating capacity. Later, copycats arrived, like the Ninja Shark line, of course. These were a little less expensive and looked better, but the product line name and hype infomercials were too cheesy for me.
I also noticed that most of the expensive ones were butt ugly.
Finally, I came across one of the original innovators in the blending world. I remember this brand from when I was a kid. We had one. Not only does this product have an equal or greater wattage than the expensive ones, but its design is beautiful! And the cost is low in comparison.
I bought a new O Pro Blender at Amazon (the best price), and I love it. I particularly like the pre-programmed smoothie button. The program runs the blender blade in opposite directions 8 times and then at full power for an extended period at the end.
Tip: Leave about 2” empty at the top of the jar to prevent spitting. If you use frozen ingredients like I do, put them in the jar and let them defrost for 40 minutes or more.
Juicing is good. Smoothies are better.