Is juicing fruit or eating it directly more nutritious?

Fruit is a very common type of food, with rich varieties, diverse flavors, good taste, and abundant nutrition, and it is deeply loved by people. Nowadays people are keen on freshly squeezed juice, thinking it is the most nutritious and most natural drink, so is fruit better juiced or eaten directly? Is juiced fruit still nutritious?

Is fruit better juiced or eaten directly?

Eating fruit directly is better, and the nutritional value of fruit is higher than that of juice.

Is juiced fruit still nutritious?

Although drinking freshly squeezed juice appropriately and in moderation is fine, juicing causes many nutrients to be lost, and compared with eating fruit directly, juicing fruit also has three major drawbacks:

1. Severe loss of vitamin C: The direct consequence of juicing is the loss of vitamins and antioxidant components such as flavonoids and anthocyanins in vegetables and fruits, even if you drink it immediately after juicing. This is because the cells of fruits and vegetables all have complex ultramicrostructures, like the cells of a honeycomb, but the contents inside are different and cannot be mixed together. For example, vitamin C must not encounter various oxidases, otherwise they will interact with each other. However, when juicing, the high-speed rotating blades destroy most of the cells and mix all the nutrients together. In this way, vitamin C encounters multiple oxidases and suffers severe losses.

2. The loss of vitamin C in fruit is mainly due to oxidation reactions. Different fruits also lose different amounts of vitamin C after juicing. The vitamin C content in every 100 grams of cucumber, pear, and carrot is less than 1 mg, while the vitamin C content in watermelon juice loses less than 20%. This is because watermelon is acidic and, compared with the previous three vegetables and fruits, is less likely to be oxidized.

3. The greatest loss is dietary fiber: Insoluble elements such as calcium and dietary fiber are also left in the pulp residue. Drinking fruit juice reduces people's intake of the dietary fiber rich in fruit, and this dietary fiber has health benefits such as preventing and reducing diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

4. Replacing vegetables and fruits with juice can easily cause constipation: Drinking juiced vegetables and fruits not only fails to help digestion, but can also cause constipation. This is because fruit loses a lot of essential dietary fiber during juicing. The insoluble fiber in it can prevent lesions of the gastrointestinal system and has the effect of stimulating intestinal peristalsis and promoting defecation.

5. However, for those who have difficulty chewing or have severe illness, when eating fresh fruit is inconvenient, juicing the fruit to make it easier to eat and digest is also a good choice. For people who can eat normally, it is still recommended to eat fresh fruit directly.

Overall, freshly squeezed juice is fine once in a while to satisfy a craving, but from the perspective of supplementing nutrition, freshly squeezed juice is far less nutritious than whole fruit. In addition, if you must choose to juice, it is also recommended to choose fresh, ripe fruits and vegetables with plump flesh as much as possible. To extract juice, you must choose those with high water content. Among fruits, watermelon, apple, strawberry, lemon, citrus, kiwifruit, pineapple, mango, and so on are relatively suitable,