Should You Drink Your Vegetables?
By Sara Butler
It’s a question many people have wondered over the course of their lives: Can you replace eating vegetables with drinking vegetable juice? The vegetable juice business is bigger than ever, so apparently a lot of people think drinking it is just as good as eating it. Plus, the juice is a lot more convenient and portable than traditional vegetables. But just because you can, does it mean you should?
The Possible Benefits of Vegetable Juice
Vegetable juice is made from, well, vegetables. It contains a lot of the same nutrients you will find in the whole vegetables it’s made from and it normally contains:
- Beets
- Celery
- Parsley
- Tomatoes
- Spinach
- Carrots
- Lettuce
- Watercress
That all sounds pretty healthy, right? It has Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Vitamin E, plus it’s low in fat and cholesterol. But, there are still some pretty big negatives to trying to drink your vegetables.
The Drawbacks of Vegetable Juice
While drinking vegetable juice is not as bad for your health as drinking soda or other sugary drinks, it does have some negatives you may find surprising. When the vegetables are pureed to make the juice they lose a lot of their fiber. Fiber is arguably one of the most important parts of eating fresh, whole vegetables because it:
- Keeps you fuller for longer and controls your appetite.
- Helps to prevent overeating and weight gain.
- Helps to keep blood sugar regulated.
- Help to relieve constipation.
- Helps to guard your heart against heart disease.
Another drawback is that the juice doesn’t satisfy your need to actually eat something and experience its texture in your mouth. The individual tastes of the vegetables are missing too.
You also have to keep in mind that vegetable juices are reconstituted from concentrate. That means water was taken out of it and then put back in, so it’s not a fresh product. It also contains “flavoring’ to which there is no legal definition – so who really knows what flavoring is added to the final product to make it taste the way it does.
Vegetable juice is also prepackaged, and just as with any other pre-packaged food, it contains a lot of sodium to add flavor to it and keep it fresh on the shelf. If you’re trying to keep track of your salt intake, this is a pretty big drawback. In fact, one eight-ounce glass of vegetable juice has an average of 481 mg of sodium. That’s a lot of salt!
This just goes to show that while vegetable juice may be convenient, it’s not a substitute for the real thing. So, do yourself a favor and unless you’re in a real pinch, eat your vegetables!