Talk Cancer

Question:

: Just buy the cheapest juicer you can find. The alt scammers : will try to push you to buy a particular brand but it doesn’t : make a whit of difference. In my experience, cheap juicers are generally crap. If you are *really* strapped for cash I recommend you buy an electrical citrus press, a cheap blender, and a manual greens juicer. Almost everyone else should save up for a proper juicer – i.e. something like: http://www.discountjuicers.com/lowrpmjuicers.html A good juicer is a very important tool.  I recommend you don’t skimp on such an important health item – unless you are *extremely* impoverished. —

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – : Just buy the cheapest juicer you can find. The alt scammers : will try to push you to buy a particular brand but it doesn’t : make a whit of difference. In my experience, cheap juicers are generally crap. If you are *really* strapped for cash I recommend you buy an electrical citrus press, a cheap blender, and a manual greens juicer. Almost everyone else should save up for a proper juicer – i.e. something like: http://www.discountjuicers.com/lowrpmjuicers.html A good juicer is a very important tool.  I recommend you don’t skimp on such an important health item – unless you are *extremely* impoverished.

With very few exceptions, why not eat the fruit or vegetable in its original form?? Doing so takes time, which allows the part of the brain that registers satiety to "do its thing" — lowering the probablility that the consumer will overeat.  In a culture where obesity is so common, this should be a consideration. While in the process of losing a great deal of weight (100 lbs.), I was advised by my fitness trainer to eat more whole fruits & veggies, less juices.  It seemed to lower my caloric consumption, as eating something generally takes longer than drinking & the fiber is not doubt usually a plus for many who don’t get enough in their diet anyway. Michele

Response:

Here’s what some juicers say about Vitamix blenders: “The most important thing to remember about juicing is that the very   purpose of juicing is to remove the pulp or fiber so the nutrients can   go to work immediately without going through the digestive   process. Advantages in bypassing the digestive system are that this   allows for very minimal loss of the nutrients before they reach our   cells, and also this saves our body from expending energy for   digestion. We need fiber in our food, but not in our juice. [...]   So where does the "Vita-Mix" fit into what we have been talking   about? First of all, IT IS NOT A JUICER! Listen to their own words in a   recent ad: "The ‘juice gurus’ on television claim that their juice   extractors provide phenomenal nutritional benefits. A recent laboratory   study reveals that juice extractors actually decrease the number of   vital nutrients you get from fruits and vegetables. That’s because they   extract and discard the most nutritious part – the pulp…. You’ll   easily get 4 to 6 times more fiber by drinking Vita-Mix Super Juice   instead of regular juice!"   Actually, the "VITA-MIX" is nothing but an expensive, glorified blender   that blends the juice and pulp into a thick mush, to which you have to   add water in order to drink. Listen to their own words again: "Only   Vita-Mix makes ‘total juice’ which includes the cholesterol-lowering   fiber… What is ‘total juice?’ It’s made by pureeing whole fruits and   vegetables to the consistency of pudding. This fiber-rich, vitamin-rich   puree is then treated just like ordinary juice concentrate and diluted   to a delicious juice consistency." But what they don’t tell you is that   because there is pulp in the juice, the nutrients cannot pass directly   into the blood stream as does pure juice from a juicer, and thus must go   to the stomach and through the digestive process. Because this blended   pulp and juice is in a liquid form, it does not get chewed in the mouth   where the digestive enzymes would normally be released as when whole raw   foods are chewed. And so this "puree" goes directly to the stomach   without the digestive enzymes and becomes a difficult substance for the   body to deal with. Because of this, very few of the nutrients find their   way to the cellular level of the body, which is where nutrients must go   if we are to receive any benefit from the foods we eat or the juices we   drink.”  - http://www.discountjuicers.com/vitamix.html I see several problems with blenders. They smash the produce – incresaing dramatically the surface area available for reactions – and mix air into it – setting it up for rapid oxidation, and destroying the enzyme content. They fail to remove fibre, which bulks up the pulp and makes it harder to absorb into the body – while simultaneously allowing the digestive system to pull it through the digestive tract quickly. There are some other practical issues.  I have no qualms about putting apple pips into my juicer – since it spits them out again.  However if I blended them they’d end up going into my body – and apple seeds contain cyanide, and are generally toxic.  This sort of thing happens fairly frequently.  For example when I juice grapes, I’d like to discard the skins – since they are the part most likely to contain pesticides, herbicides, and other garbage.  My juicer spits them out on my behalf. *Sometimes* I want to eat the skins.  With blueberries – for example – the skin is one of the best bits.  However I do not put them into a blender – for fear of destroying the compounds I am attempting to digest, and causing premature oxidation of the juice. I chew them up myself. I recommend a low RPM juicer for most tasks. Here’s my juicer: http://timtyler.org/juicer/ A blender may have its uses – but making fruit and vegetable juices seems like an unsuitable application to me.  It’s true that it gives you all the nutrients in foods.  However they are not very digestible, are smashed to bits, and they oxidise too quickly.  These downsides generally win out. What I think you want is something that chews your food for you.  Blending it at high speeds seems like a highly unnatural process by comparison. —

Response:

: With very few exceptions, why not eat the fruit or vegetable in its : original form?? : Doing so takes time, which allows the part of the brain that registers : satiety to "do its thing" — lowering the probablility that the consumer : will overeat.  In a culture where obesity is so common, this should be a : consideration. : While in the process of losing a great deal of weight (100 lbs.), I was : advised by my fitness trainer to eat more whole fruits & veggies, less : juices.  It seemed to lower my caloric consumption, as eating something : generally takes longer than drinking & the fiber is not doubt usually a : plus for many who don’t get enough in their diet anyway. Incidentally, I note that a number of caloric restriction (CR) practitioners use – and recommed – blenders and juicers.  Part of the idea seems to be that – by more efficiently extracting the nutrients – you can get by with consuming less food. Here’s Ian Goddard on the virtues of his Vitamix: “[B]reaking down the cell walls is how juicing liberates   nutrients, much of which is not liberated during chewing or   digestion. Several months ago in debate here on the paleo diet   versus vegetarianism it was pointed out in detail how humans   lack the ability to digest the cellulose in vegetables like   cows or gorillas, and thus we cannot get all the nutrition in   the cellulose-sealed cells of veggies as true vegetarians can.   Well, juicers such as the VitaMix can do that digestion for us.   At least that seems to be a reasonable hypothesis. The VitaMix   brochure that finally pulled me in made exactly that argument.   I attribute much of my CR success to VitaMix vegetable juice.”  - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crsociety/message/21611 —

Response:

: With very few exceptions, why not eat the fruit or vegetable in its : original form?? : : Doing so takes time, which allows the part of the brain that registers : satiety to "do its thing" — lowering the probablility that the : consumer will overeat.  In a culture where obesity is so common, this : should be a consideration. : The usual excuse given is that juicing allows the nutrients to be absorbed : more rapidly.  This one has always puzzled me.  Why is that considered : important?  Presumably if you’re eating a good diet, you have near-constant : levels of micronutrients in your body and the levels will be maintained as : long as absorption and depletion occur at about the same rate.  One claim : is that slowly-absorbed nutrients are eliminated before they can be fully : absorbed, but unless someone has chronic diarrhea, that shouldn’t happen.   Excreting fibre-bound nutrients is very common.  That’s part of the reason why people are advised to chew their food.  The tinier the particles that the food is chewed into, the more easily it can be broken down by the other enzymes further down the digestive tract.  Food that fails to be chewed properly does not get properly treated by the stomach either – and the problem cascades down into the intestines.  You only really get one good chance to mechanically break down your food – and that is before you swallow it. Mahatma Ghandi said: "Chew your drink, and drink your food." You should turn your food into liquid before swallawing – and chew on juice – to help mix it with saliva. —

Response:

: A good juicer is a very important tool.  I recommend you don’t skimp on : such an important health item – unless you are *extremely* impoverished. : With very few exceptions, why not eat the fruit or vegetable in its original : form?? : Doing so takes time, which allows the part of the brain that registers : satiety to "do its thing" — lowering the probablility that the consumer : will overeat.  In a culture where obesity is so common, this should be a : consideration. : While in the process of losing a great deal of weight (100 lbs.), I was : advised by my fitness trainer to eat more whole fruits & veggies, less : juices.  It seemed to lower my caloric consumption, as eating something : generally takes longer than drinking & the fiber is not doubt usually a : plus for many who don’t get enough in their diet anyway. Improving nutrient absorbsion, is probably the main reason.  A juicer is very much like mechanical chewing assistance.  Notoriously most people fail to chew their food adequately before swallowing it.  A juicer reduces the chances of that happening. There are downsides to having a maching chew your food.  In particular the enzymes in saliva are not mixed in with it – and there is no chance do detect decayed or foreign bits using your taste buds – but there are significant up sides. Try eating wheatgrass – *without* juicing it – if you want to see where a juicer is at its most valuable.  By all accounts, juicing wheatgrass wheatgrass produces an extremely nutritious beverage.  Without a juicer, the experience is not terribly pleasant – and the fibre effectively reduces your intake to practically nothing. I juice a wide variety of other vegetables.  Celery, lettuce, spinach, carrots – and so on all make great juices.  These are low calorie products. With fruit the case for juicing is not always so clear.  I juice a number of fruit.  Blackberries, raspberries and strawberries are among them. With blackberries and raspberries I want to avoid the seeds.  Nature made the flesh of the fruit for me.  The seeds are for the plant, and I see no reason to think the indigestible gravel of blackberry seeds is good for me. I’d rather spit them out. Juicing grapes similarly seems like a good idea.  The skin gets spat out – and that’s the bit most likely to be covered by pesticides – and the seeds get ground up (to some extent).  Grape seeds (unlike the seeds of some fruit) do seem to be good for you.  I don’t juice many grapes, though. The result is too sweet. About calories – in general I think people should comsume more fruit and vegetables – by whatever means – partly in the hope of displacing other less healthy items from their diets.  Most people can probably be well advised to cut down on bread, crisps and biscuits before looking twice at the calories in their fruit and vegetables. The recommended dose of fruit and vegetables seems to be monotonically increasing: “Those of you who have been struggling to eat the recommended five   servings of fruits and vegetables a day, brace yourself.   There is a new message coming from the National Cancer Institute   (NCI): Nine a day is what is needed.   "The recommendation is not five-a-day anymore. It’s five to nine   servings a day," says Lorelei DiSogra, director of the 5 A Day Program   at NCI.   Since 1991, both the food pyramid and dietary guidelines have   recommended that people eat at least five servings of fruits and   vegetables a day. While five is good, nine is apparently much better   when it comes to health benefits.”  - http://www.muschealth.com/breakingnews/ For many people, this will seem to represents a lot of produce.  A good juicer can help make both fruit and vegetables more palatable. For those seriously counting calories, juicing fruit will increase their calorie content – as well as letting out more other nutrients.  Fruit are not generally very high in calories – but /some/ do have a lot.  AFAIK, nobody juices dates or advocadoes in the first place – but you can get a fair few calories from a banana or a mango. If this is a big concern my advice would be – don’t juice (or even eat much of) this sort of fruit. As for fibre, if you need more fibre, eat more of it.  Juice is not supposed to replace food, but to supplement it.  It’s a bit like a more natural vitamin pill in that respect. —

Response:

With very few exceptions, why not eat the fruit or vegetable in its original form?? Doing so takes time, which allows the part of the brain that registers satiety to "do its thing" — lowering the probablility that the consumer will overeat.  In a culture where obesity is so common, this should be a consideration.

The usual excuse given is that juicing allows the nutrients to be absorbed more rapidly.  This one has always puzzled me.  Why is that considered important?  Presumably if you’re eating a good diet, you have near-constant levels of micronutrients in your body and the levels will be maintained as long as absorption and depletion occur at about the same rate.  One claim is that slowly-absorbed nutrients are eliminated before they can be fully absorbed, but unless someone has chronic diarrhea, that shouldn’t happen.   Maybe it’s a concern if you’re constantly purg^hcleansing yourself. (One explanation is popular with those of a naturopathic bent, namely that juicing reduces the amount of energy expended in digestion; naturopathic types seem to consider this very important.  It strikes me that for the typical Westerner, maximizing the rate of absorption of nutrients and minimizing the energy expenditure involved in that absorption is going in exactly the wrong direction; they sound like what you’d want for a starving person.) While in the process of losing a great deal of weight (100 lbs.), I was advised by my fitness trainer to eat more whole fruits & veggies, less juices.  It seemed to lower my caloric consumption, as eating something generally takes longer than drinking & the fiber is not doubt usually a plus for many who don’t get enough in their diet anyway.

Plus the fact that a glass of juice concentrates the most caloric parts of several servings of a fruit or vegetable; a glass of OJ doesn’t look like "a lot of food" but the 4 or 5 oranges that would have to be squeezed for it certainly do.

Response:

Hi everyone,

Hi Natili, I have JUICED and I Bought a VITAMIX blender. I call it the Blender on Steroids because it has a 2+ hp engine and will liquify carrots and other vegetables and greens in a matter of second in liquid, (either water, milk, soy milk, etc.) I swear by the Vitamix.  It cleans up in a jiffy, AND you get the fiber which is important to keep me REGULAR. I would highly recommend this machine. It will last a lifetime and it does all kinds of stuff.  I use it at least once or twice EVERY day of the year.  Rain or Shine.  Right now I have 3 half flats (boxes) of Strawberries frozen in my ice box and simply add a handfull of those with a couple of carrots and maybe a banana and protein powder and I have a delicous TRIMMING meal in seconds. See: http://www.vitamix.com for details.  They have an 800 # and their AFTER Purchase Customer Service is a good as before you buy.  See website for Purchase options.  It is a once in a lifetime investment you will never regret. Happy Vitamixing! Don Boring Glendora, CA. USA

Response:

amen to the Vitamix. ive had mine for near 8 years now, and it cost 400 hundred bucks. absolutely zero maintenance, zero problems….lets see… that’s about 50 bucks a year for a kitchen appliance that will liquefy rocks.  ain’t no Waring blender that will do what a vitamix will. I look at it like this: if I’m serious about juicing( or driving a car), I want the best appliance(vehicle) available for it. in this case, its a Vitamix ( and I drive a Cadillac). you’ve seen Vitamix in al the major juice bars, and margaritas have been made in them for years in the hotels and nightclubs.  this is an industrial strength blender, and granted, maybe the average Joe doesn’t need such power. but… noone is spamming here.   rather, we are recommending a good product…. much in the same way we would recommend to you our favorite restaurant….. the Vitamix company is very low key, and has never spammed anyone as far as I know. mark-h

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi everyone, Hi Natili, I have JUICED and I Bought a VITAMIX blender. I call it the Blender on Steroids because it has a 2+ hp engine and will liquify carrots and other vegetables and greens in a matter of second in liquid, (either water, milk, soy milk, etc.) I swear by the Vitamix.  It cleans up in a jiffy, AND you get the fiber which is important to keep me REGULAR. I would highly recommend this machine. It will last a lifetime and it does all kinds of stuff.  I use it at least once or twice EVERY day of the year.  Rain or Shine.  Right now I have 3 half flats (boxes) of Strawberries frozen in my ice box and simply add a handfull of those with a couple of carrots and maybe a banana and protein powder and I have a delicous TRIMMING meal in seconds. See: http://www.vitamix.com for details.  They have an 800 # and their AFTER Purchase Customer Service is a good as before you buy.  See website for Purchase options.  It is a once in a lifetime investment you will never regret. Happy Vitamixing! Don Boring Glendora, CA. USA

Response:

Hi everyone, I’ve been trying to improve my diet lately by eating more fruits and vegitables, and have been looking into getting either a good blender or a juice extractor. In researching these I have been getting conflicting information regarding which is better health-wise. I heard that fibre is very important for healthy diets, and that blenders are better because they retain all the fibre. But then I also read that when we drink the shake (vs. eating fibre where our digestive juices break it down), that our body has trouble digesting the fiber. And I read that the benefit of a juice extractor is that it gives you just the nutrients and they get absorbed right into our body faster. But then I also read that there is no fibre at all that way and your body is just getting a lot of sugar. And there is a lot of wastage with a juice extractor. So basically, I’m getting a lot of conflicting information and I don’t know which is best. Hopefully someone can help as I don’t want to miss your reply. Thanks!! Nathalie

Response:

in my opinion..the absolute best way to go is with a Vitamix…its like a blender on steroids.  costs a bit more more than your average oster blender, but does the job WAY better, comes with a killer warrantyand a whopping 12 amp motor ( oster etc typically have 3 amp motors). whole fruit/vegies+water=real juice. yes, extracted juice gives ya mostly simple sugars, and the fibers missing are quite important not only for digestion but for ballancing out the "sugar rush", which is not good for your body.  the general rule with natural fruit veggie fibers is: if ya can eat it(fibers, pulp, skin, seeds etc.), then ya dont need to extract it.  some exceptions apply of course. for example, some folks like to peel their carrots before juicing–since the peel is slightly acidic, it makes the carrot juice much sweeter. another "extracted" juice is wheatgrass—there is no way humans can digest those grass fibers. there are many good books out there on juicing, and i’m sure Vitamix has a website. just be aware that ya wanna start slow ( dont jump right into a weeklong juice fast!) and educate yourself as ya go. juicing has been one of the best things ive done for myself, ever….your body will love it! mark-h

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi everyone, I’ve been trying to improve my diet lately by eating more fruits and vegitables, and have been looking into getting either a good blender or a juice extractor. In researching these I have been getting conflicting information regarding which is better health-wise. I heard that fibre is very important for healthy diets, and that blenders are better because they retain all the fibre. But then I also read that when we drink the shake (vs. eating fibre where our digestive juices break it down), that our body has trouble digesting the fiber. And I read that the benefit of a juice extractor is that it gives you just the nutrients and they get absorbed right into our body faster. But then I also read that there is no fibre at all that way and your body is just getting a lot of sugar. And there is a lot of wastage with a juice extractor. So basically, I’m getting a lot of conflicting information and I don’t know which is best. Hopefully someone can help as I don’t want to miss your reply. Thanks!! Nathalie

Response: