Juicing seems like it is inherently healthy, and there are many reasons people give for wanting to juice. Here are some of the most popular:
- Flush out toxins in a “detox”
- Replace some meals to lose weight
- Increase vitamin intake
- Increase antioxidant intake
- Improve your immune system
- Use juicing as an alternative cancer treatment
- Fast and easy way to get recommended daily fruits and veggies
- Juices are easier to digest
- Increased energy
Along with the debate about nature vs. nurture, the controversy over reductionism and holism occupies the brain space of many philosophers, psychologists, biologists and just about every scientific profession on the planet, including nutrition.
Reductionism holds that complex entities are best understood by breaking them down into their fundamental constituent components. Holism takes the view that the whole can be more than the sum of its parts and that “something,” albeit an often unknown “something,” is always missed when you only consider the components that comprise a larger entity and not the entity as a whole.
Reductionism is an obsession with physiological minutia. Although details of physiological functions are crucial for all of us in healthcare to be familiar with, it is a very poor way to derive meal-to-meal advice on what to eat. That is nevertheless what many nutrition experts use as a basis for the advice they give, and just about every media piece or institution tries to extrapolate daily nutrition advice from new nutrition research. This is one of the reasons that dietary advice is so confusing and can seem to change daily.
In his book Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, T. Colin Campbell describes reductionism using a metaphor. “Six blind men are asked to describe an elephant. Each feels a different body part: leg, tusk, trunk, tail, ear, and belly. Predictably, each offers a vastly different assessment: pillar, pipe, tree branch, rope, fan, and wall. They argue vigorously, each sure that their experience alone is the correct one.” In terms of nutrition research, we make the problem even larger. “Modern science tasks 60,000 researchers to examine the elephant, each through a different lens.”
When we humans get involved in things, we often want to “drill down into the details.” The trouble with health is that it doesn’t work that way. I often say that if eating the right things to keep us healthy was rocket science, we would have never made it to 2021! Keeping our bodies healthy and eating the right stuff is a subconscious process we never have to think about. The problem is that these subconscious mechanisms were developed in an environmental context of food scarcity which for most places in first world countries doesn’t exist anymore. We now live in an environmental context of food (or at least calorie) abundance in which the subconscious mechanisms that were developed to maintain our health betray us and lead to the chronic diseases of excess that, for the first time in human history, affect an entire population. What used to be called the diseases of kings because they were the only people that could afford to eat to excess now affects all of us.
Douglas Lisle, in his book The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force That Undermines Health & Happiness calls one set of subconscious biological feedback systems the “motivational triad.” I will not go into details about that here again, but The Pleasure Trap is a highly recommended reading!
Reductionism and holism suggest entirely different solutions to the present excess issue. Reductionist thinkers always look for something to add, like an activity or a specific nutrient. “The problem has to be something I am not getting enough of.” The problem isn’t that we are not getting enough of something; it is that we are getting too much of something! Holism suggests that the solution to our chronic disease dilemma is in the forest of health, not the details of physiological minutia. The answer is to get back to our original environment context and allow our subconscious biological feedback systems to guide us to health. Just about all activities that create health take something away rather than add something.
The idea is to get back to eating “whole foods.” As the word implies, you don’t have to do anything to a whole food but eat it. If blenders oxidize and masticating juicers remove the fiber, why not just eat the whole food? That’s an excellent question that each of us needs to consider when thinking about juicing.
So, where does juicing come into all of this? Juicing is an added activity that emphasizes individual nutrients rather than concentrating on the big picture. It is reductionism as opposed to holism. Health is located in eating whole foods, not concentrating on individual components of foods called nutrients.
Let’s address some juicing issues.
Fiber
If you read these healthy eating tips regularly, you know that I raise the issue of fiber a lot. Increasing fiber is one of the secrets of health. The DASH diet recommends that we all get no less than 30 grams of fiber a day. Americans are lucky to get 10 grams a day; most of us get half that amount! Fiber is the secret weapon that can help you lower cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, stabilize blood sugar, fill your stomach and slow digestion. Yes, making orange juice can give you a higher concentration of vitamin C, but it is more calorically dense than a whole orange; it metabolizes faster, raising your blood sugar, and it has no fiber in it! Think of any fruit juice as soda without the bubbles because that is precisely what it is! Nature is smart. Fruits that are higher in sugar come with a fibrous matrix that slows down the absorption of sugar. Without that fiber as a barrier, sugars quickly absorb into your bloodstream and raise blood sugars.
Increased energy
Juice increases blood sugar quickly, leading to a burst of energy followed by a blood sugar crash. This causes you to drink more juice or reach for an additional snack. All of this spiking and crashing leads to an endless cycle of sugar and calorie consumption. It’s the vicious cycle responsible for a large amount of weight gain in the United States! This is why eliminating pop and juice is always one of my “low hanging fruit” suggestions when I talk to people about weight loss.
Replace some meals to lose weight
Juice adds a lot of calories and sugar to your diet; this can lead to weight gain or make it difficult for you to lose weight. A balanced meal contains the three macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein and fat. Juice is not a balance of these macronutrients, so it shouldn’t substitute for a meal. Protein and fat are needed for fullness and satisfaction. Juice alone won’t deliver the sustaining energy necessary to make it through the day. The addition of fat slows digestion, enhances food satisfaction and protein and fiber help balance your blood sugar. Juice lacks all three of those things.
In extreme situations, meal replacement can be a viable weight-loss strategy, but the supplement used is always a balanced and complete meal replacement with adequate protein, fat, nutrients and fiber.
Flush out toxins in a “detox.”
The bottom line is, juice cleanses don’t work. We already have an elegant and elaborate detoxification system in our kidneys, liver and intestines. We need to free up our detox organs by removing what clogs them up; excessive salt, fat and sugar. You can do more to aid your body’s detox function by removing excess than by adding anything more. The only help our bodies need to keep us clean is to reduce the pollutants we are asking it to remove!
Increase vitamin intake
Vitamins are either water-soluble or fat-soluble. Water-soluble vitamins are readily available in nature and are therefore not stored by the body. Your daily requirements are quickly met just by eating a well-balanced diet. Since not many Americans eat a well-balanced diet, I suggest that everybody take a multivitamin. Fat-soluble vitamins are absorbed in the intestines with the help of fat and then stored by the body for future use. They can be toxic to your body if you get too much, and therefore it is not a good idea to megadose vitamins like A and D. There is no need to increase vitamin intake. Just getting your daily requirement is perfectly adequate. More is not better, and it can be worse in many cases.
Increase antioxidant intake
Improve your immune system
Use juicing as an alternative cancer treatment
I put all three of these together because they are all related and warrant an entire healthy eating tip of their own.
Free radicals are unstable molecules without a full complement of electrons, and they travel around the body, scavenging electrons from where ever they can causing harm as they go. Antioxidants are molecules that safely interact with free radicals donating an electron to them and thereby neutralizing their harmful effect. Antioxidants are a vital component of your immune system, and juicing as a cancer treatment is simply banking on increased antioxidants to fight cancer through your immune system. The research support for this is weak.
Antioxidants are widely available in nature. Berries of all kinds have exceptionally high levels of antioxidants, especially those with bright, colorful pigmentation. Red grapes, broccoli, spinach, green tea, oranges, carrots, parsley, garlic, nuts, seeds and peppers are also high in antioxidants. It’s not hard to see that getting antioxidants from a well-balanced diet isn’t hard at all. Juicing is just not going to improve your antioxidant intake.
Fast and easy way to get recommended daily fruits and veggies
I hear this quite a bit from people that want to juice. One of the main reasons why fruits and vegetables are listed with a substantial daily requirement is the fiber they contain. You can make it to 30 grams a day of fiber without eating fruits and vegetables, but you better like grains, brown rice and beans a lot!
Juices are Easier to Digest
What makes juice easier to digest is the absence of fiber. Unless you have a digestive issue like gastroparesis or diverticulitis, easy digestion is not necessarily beneficial. As in the case of glucose, quick digestion is not desirable.
It’s not all negative. If you are involved in a rigorous exercise regime where you burn several thousand calories a day, you may want to provide your body with some extra calories. People working out that much are most likely past the point of trying to lose weight. They are probably trying to strengthen and put on muscle mass. Most of us that have been in that kind of condition know that it doesn’t last long, and your juicing habit shouldn’t last long either. If you are juicing to provide extra calories for intense workouts, think about adding something like hemp powder. This one adds 13 grams of protein and 13 grams of fiber per serving. It’s going to change the nature of the smoothie or juice you make, but it will also make it more balanced and deal with some of the juicing issues raised here.
Have a great week, and remember to think holistically about health. Health is the whole forest, not the individual trees!
Here are the references for today’s Healthy Eating Tip:
Lisle, Douglas J. and Alan Goldhammer. The Pleasure Trap. Summertown, TN: Healthy Living Publications, 2003.
Also available on a DVD that is both informative and entertaining! (https://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Trap-Douglas-J-Lisle/dp/1570672822)
Campbell, T. Colin, Jacobson, Howard. Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition. BenBella Books, 2014.