An Argument Against Juicing

One of the most interesting documentaries I’ve watched in the past decade is called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. In it, the filmmakers make the case for juicing, claiming that since juice contains all of the nutrients in the actual fruit or vegetable, so drinking juice will put those nutrients directly into our bloodstream, much more quickly than it would if we were to spend time digesting a vegetable.

But if you start to pick through the research, you come across an interesting fact: many of the benefits of eating a plant come from eating it whole, due to the fiber and extra nutrients that are discarded when you juice.

Many of the compounds in these vegetables are ones that we haven’t identified yet or don’t fully understand. We know they’re beneficial to our bodies, but we’re not exactly sure why.

The same could be said for apps like Blinkist, that give you the adult cliff’s notes of business books. Sure, someone could extract all the meaning out of a book and give it to you in a few sentences, but that doesn’t actually stack up to the benefit of reading an entire book. When you get the author’s every word, it might be occasionally repetitive, but the learnings will stick with you much more deeply than if you just read a summary.

I’m anti-juicing, unless I can get the same benefit for less effort. Seems that is rarely the case.