Consuming fruits and vegetables that are high in fibre, minerals, and vitamins regularly can help you obtain the vitamins you need and strengthen your immune system. While eating the fruits whole without blending them may be quick and simple, blending the fruits breaks down their cell walls, allowing the nutrients to be released more readily and improving your body’s ability to absorb the nutrients it needs.
Fruits blended into a single drink now make it very convenient to consume a variety of nutrients. With the help of a blender, you can easily and quickly crush your fruit into a delicious sweetness, which you can then simply include in your diet as a fruit smoothie or drink. However, the debate of whether blending fruits makes them less healthy has been raised among health enthusiasts and blender makers, even though blending fruits contributes to the growth of nutritional well-being. Does blending fruit in a blender reduce its nutritional value? This article will examine the benefits and drawbacks of blending fruit, In order to determine if blending fruits makes them less healthy or not
Nutritional Information of Blended Fruit
The fruits most commonly blended include bananas, berries, mangoes, apples, and oranges among many others, and when blended the drink comes out rich in vitamins such as vitamin C, this plays a big role in the functioning of your immune system, your overall skin health as well as aid in wound healing.
When fruit is blended, the dietary fibre structure changes, making it less dense than when the fruit is consumed whole. If your blended fruits have a high glycemic index—which is just a measurement of how carbohydrates affect your blood sugar levels or if you have diabetes—your risk of developing high blood sugar increases, so you should go for fruits with a low glycemic index.
Fruits are rich in phytochemicals and antioxidants, which are essential for reducing the risk of chronic disease and defending the body against oxidative stress. While blending may reduce the amount of these compounds because it weakens the cell walls, exposing the compounds to heat and oxygen, it still contributes to the body’s ability to absorb antioxidants. However, if you want to get the most antioxidants and phytochemicals possible, you should combine your blended fruits with whole fruits.
The calorie density of blended fruit tends to be higher, especially when other ingredients such as yoghurt, honey, and other sweeteners are included, some of which may be rich in calories, so be mindful of the ingredients you add to your fruits when you want to blend, in fact, it is best you keep to natural sugars which are very healthy on their own.
Benefits of Blending Fruit
The most essential benefit of blending your fruits before eating them is that it helps you to get the complete essence of the fruit since the blender crushes every fibre of the fruit, unlike other methods of extracting the nutrients in the fruit such as juicing. When most of the fibre of the fruit is removed during juicing, the quality of the fruit nutrients suffers, despite the fact that fibre plays an important function in food digestion, increasing satiety, and regulating blood sugar levels in the body which is why it is better you blend your fruit rather than juice it.
While it may be difficult for you to consume several fruits that are beneficial to your health, blending fruits allows you to incorporate all of these fruits into a single serving which is also quite enjoyable. This intake of numerous fruits gives a rich amount of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants essential for your health.
When blending fruit, choose ripe fruits because they are more flavorful and sweeter. Ripe fruits also tend to release more nutrients when blended. The nutrients produced by blended fruits benefit your health by lowering cholesterol levels and decreasing your risk of developing heart disease.
Demerits of Blending Fruit
While there are certain advantages to blending your fruits before eating them, there are also drawbacks to doing so, one of which is the effect on blood sugar levels. Although this is not always the case, it can be limited to the usage of high-sugar fruits such as bananas or mangoes, as well as other fruits with similar sugar concentrations. also, the addition of extra sugar or sugar-rich fruits contributes to the destruction of the nutritious value of your fruits and reduces their healthiness.
Although the blending procedure does not necessarily change the nutritious makeup of the fruits, because air and heat affect the fruits, some enzymes or vitamins may decay over time. This activity of nutritional degradation over time may be perceived as becoming less healthy because the blended fruit now has lesser nutrients than the entire fruit; however, this may not matter if you consume your blended fruit quickly.
Now the question: Does Blending Fruit Make it Less Healthy?
This is a bit of a delicate topic, but does blending your fruits directly without any extra added components make the fruits less healthy? No, it does not.
The blending process does not destroy the nutrients in the fruits; rather, it grinds them up, liquefies them, and extracts the nutrients for your body to absorb. Although you may make your fruit smoothie unhealthy by adding harmful ingredients such as sugar. Blending the fruit brings out the natural sweetness by breaking down the cell walls and releasing the natural sugars, allowing your body to quickly absorb the natural sugar while also helping to regulate your blood sugar levels and preventing a rise in the level of insulin in your body. The greater rate of sugar absorption can turn out to be a source of worry if you have diabetes or insulin resistance since it might induce fluctuations in your blood sugar level.
During blending, the cell walls are broken down to release the nutrients stored in the fruit, but due to the action of heat and oxygen, certain minerals and vitamins are lost. However, water-soluble vitamins such as C and B are not lost, and fat-soluble vitamins such as Vitamin A and E are also less affected by the blending.
Although whole fruits have more nutrients than blended fruits, blended fruits are easier to digest because the blender has done the majority of the work for you by breaking down the fibre so you don’t have to chew, so if you want to get the most out of your fruit, don’t be afraid to blend it; it won’t make it less healthy. However, you must be careful about the type and amount of fruit you include in your blended drinks.
Conclusion
Blended fruit is a convenient and beneficial addition to a healthy lifestyle, and using a powerful blender such as the Vitamix guarantees that essential fibres are retained to aid your overall well-being. The blending process improves nutrient absorption and allows you to consume more fruits while also enjoying the health benefits. Now we know that blending does not reduce the nutritional content of single fruits, you should however be cautious with fruits heavy in sugar and other unhealthy elements. For a well-balanced dietary lifestyle, be modest in your fruit choices for blending, so go ahead and whip up that Vitamix or Nutribullet from your cabinet and turn your fruits into mushy sweetness.