Are smoothies healthy ?
There is no such thing as healthy or unhealthy, as all food serves a different purpose depending on who you are (your socio-economic status) and what you need (energy & nutrients / pleasure & satisfaction).
The fear of fruit because of its sugar content needs to go away, because nutrients in a food matrix work very differently in our bodies to isolated nutrients, i.e. sugar by itself.
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Fruit contains a wide range of vitamins and polyphenols (anti-oxidant properties), as well as lots of fibre. So if not eaten in abnormal amounts, fruit does nothing but good to us (provided you don’t have medical conditions due to which you should avoid fruit that triggers your condition, e.g. gastritis).
It is true that when juiced, fruit loses its fibre. When blended, some of the fibre is still present, due to the pulp of the fruit remaining in the mixture.
When processed (this includes cooking and blending) cellular walls are broken, which makes nutrients more bio-available. This means that they are more easily absorbed by the body.
It is widely accepted that cellular integrity (intact cell wall structure) is an important factor responsible for keeping blood sugar balanced. This is because as carbs/sugars are less available to the body due to the cells being intact, blood sugar doesn’t spike up as high and dip as deep after a meal.
So when it comes to smoothies, blending fruit simply makes fruit sugar (fructose) more bio-available and your body is provided with energy quicker. However, this may mean than hunger may also come back quicker.
However, this does not mean that you should avoid smoothies. Simply stick to:
adding sensible amounts of fruit into it (e.g. 1/2 banana & 1/2 apple or 1/2 banana & a handful of berries or a handful of frozen mango and kiwi cubes)
add protein - it helps you stay full for longer and regular protein consumption throughout the day is important for healthy ageing
add fats to stay fuller for longer - nut butter / whole nuts / chia or flax seeds / avocado (I know sounds gross but you can’t taste it at all and it makes the texture the creamiest everrrrrr)
add some greens - I love having frozen bits of spinach and adding a small frozen ball to my smoothies. Once again, you can’t feel the flavour, but it counts towards your vegetable intake.
Overall, smoothies are an easy and convenient way to consume fruit and veg, just ask yourself: ”would I consume this whole?” and if the answer is yes, blend it. If it comes to 5 oranges, a banana, a few apples and some mango being blended, then the answer is probably that you wouldn’t consume this much fruit whole in one go and so blending it is equivalently not such a great idea.
