How good are smoothies exactly?

[Thomcat]

Home made ones that is. I just had the juice of:
1 x kiwi
1 x apple
1 x pear
a handful of grapes.

How much better off would I have been eating the fruit itself and not juicing them?

I'm crap at eating fruit usually but am really trying to make the effort while i'm pregnant.
But just interested in how much, if any, goodness you throw away when you just drink the juice?

That won't be my only smoothie today btw, I've bagged up different fruits together and shoved them in the fridge for juicing throughout the day. Makes a lot of washing up doesn't though.

eating the fruit will always be better for you because a lot of the goodness is in the skins .. at least that's what I always believed

still smoothies are yum and better than coffee for you

how's pg going tc?

God knows! Depends exactly how much you throw away I suppose - you wouldn't eat the kiwi skin anyway and do the grapes go in whole? So if you just thinly peel the apple and pear and cut out a tiny bit of core you get most of it.

Of course it would be better to eat the whole fruit (assuming no pesticides on skin of course!) but if you wouldn't eat that much fruit but will drink the juice then the juice has to be the best thing. I know in things about "5 portions a day" they say only one juice drink counts towards the 5 even if you drink a whole carton but it's got to help, hasn't it?

Good for you!

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We are addicted to smoothies!!!

We put allsorts in them and keep the skins on. Add a bit of natural yoghurt and honey - yum!!!

My fav one at the mo is bananas & pecan nuts

Yummy! And an excellent way of getting virtually a whole fruit quota into you in one go. I like smoothies with strawberries in them, that you have to chew a bit after every mouthful

The main differnece is in the fibre content. I think that blending them breaks down some of the fibre that your body would have broken down. That said though, I am a huge fan of smoothies and make them regularly for the kids as well as buying hte INnocent ones for lazy days. We just got back from the local farmers market this morning and I had bought a punnet of plems. SOme were so over ripe that they needed using asap. SO i made them into a smoothie with a banana and the juice of one orange (We have a juicer). It was delicious.

There's a big difference between juicing fruit (and making fruit juice) and blending it (and making a smoothie).

Home-made fresh juice is much better than bought juice, as it's fresher, but it's missing all the fibre etc that you chuck away.

Blended fruits, as in a home-made smoothie, are the same as whole fruit, and are hence just as good.

Oh, excellent! Thats good to know as we are doing a lot of smoothies right now too.

Smoothies (home made/bought) are also nice poured into those ice lolly makers and frozen.

Cool, cheers girls. Having a bluberry, strawberry, cherry and grape one next.
Twiglett - it's going really well, thanks for asking. Bit hormonal and D is being a lazy pain in the bum so not helping, in any way shape or form at the mo. But other than that I'm good, thanks.

What do you guys put in your smoothies? Aside from the fruit i mean - we always put yoghurt, milk, ice and a teaspoon of honey. Are there other ways?

I like them with just fruit. But sometimes DH makes a really decadant one with coffee, cream and Baileys in it!

We usually have one for breakfast each morning as DD thinks fruit in its natural state is an attempt at poisoning her!
Use apple juice as the base rather than milk.
This morning's was banana, mango and apple juice - yummmmm!