Fruits are packed with nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. The bright colors also indicate the presence of beneficial phytochemicals. Phytochemicals are chemicals that the fruits produce which have a protective effect on our health. So if that is the case, the more fruit, the better it is for our health, right? Not so fast: we often forget that fruit also contains sugar. Sugar is sugar, whether it comes from fruit or from candy. That’s where drinking your fruits gets tricky.
When we drink fruit in a shake, smoothie, or juice we can drink greater amount of fruit than we normally would by just eating it. One cup of smoothie can have 2 cups or more of fruit. If you eat 1 cup of fruit, the time it takes to chew the fruit helps contribute to the feeling of satiation from the food and triggers you to stop after one cup. However, if we drink our fruits, the feeling of satisfaction and fullness is smaller, so we can drink two cups of fruit without feeling full. If we drink it as a juice, it is even worse as there is no fiber in the juice and we can even have more fruit (and thus more sugar).
In respect to our metabolism, when we eat a fruit our body starts producing insulin to process the sugar. When you quickly drink a shake/smoothie/juice, the initial production of insulin does not occur. In this case, our body only begins producing insulin when the smoothie reaches our stomach and our system receives a signal that there is sugar involved. By then there is a delay of 15 to 20 minutes in the insulin production. This delay is significant in the blood sugar level especially for diabetics.
Eat your fruit, enjoy it, but do not drink it.