To juice or not to juice........

JohnnyCrash

Hi folks,dont know if this is the correct place to post this,but im looking for runners opinions on this as opposed to general ones. Just bought a juicer/blender for herself(new years detox etc...;)) and thought I may as well get some use out of it myself.
Does anyone on here juice,and if so,any recipes for energy and recovery juices? Cheers in advance.

ecoli

Natural yoghurt, frozen strawberries, half a tablespoon of peanut butter and spoon of whey protein I find great for recovery drink or even first thing in morning to keep you full for a while

skittles8710

Hi Johnny,

Thinking of giving the juicing a go myself. Which blender did ye get? I've been given a voucher but not sure which one to go for.. Let me know how you get on with it.

cullenswood

Are you not better off eating the full fruit itself....ie eating an full orange, rather than the juice from it, to get the fibre content and other nutrients that are not in the juice alone?

Ososlo

cullenswood wrote: »

Are you not better off eating the full fruit itself....ie eating an full orange, rather than the juice from it, to get the fibre content and other nutrients that are not in the juice alone?

that's the very reason why i got rid of my juicer and just blend now. Hate the waste of juicing. I eat my veggies whole but blend my fruit as it's a good way to make a nice drink and add stuff like chia seeds and soya protein as they taste ok when blended with fruit.
A nice drink for me is chia seeds, Greek yogurt, raw coca powder, whole orange and pineapple. Sometimes swap the chia seeds for protein shake.

bambergbike

Definitely blending for me. Haven't done much of it lately - fruit smoothies and fruit buttermilk drinks (buttermilk blended with frozen rasberries, for example) are a more a summer thing with me.

I'm not mad into "green smoothies" - I usually just eat my greens - but these are two that I sometimes make when I'm bored with salads and still have half a bag of rocket sitting in the fridge:

Pear and rocket Smoothie With Ginger and Walnuts

Rocket Piña Colada Smoothie

Recovery smoothie: frozen banana, milk, peanut butter, cocoa power, and some form of sugar/syrup (caramal syrup, honey, brown sugar). Maybe with a shot of coffee added. I've never actually run far enough to need one of these afterwards, but they come in handy after 100-mile cycles.

thewolf_ie

It's all about the wheatgrass! The centrifugal juicer destroys most of the good from the juices as opposed to an masticating juicer. You should never replace a whole food healthy diet which includes whole fruit and veg. Juices are a way to get additional nutrition.

spurscormac

And here was me thinking this would be a moral discussion on the rights or wrongs of drugs.

RacoonQueen

You shouldn't do steroids. It's cheating.

Pherekydes

Ososlo wrote: »

A nice drink for me is chia seeds, Greek yogurt, raw coca powder, whole orange and pineapple. Sometimes swap the chia seeds for protein shake.

Where do you get coca powder? :eek:

Ososlo

Pherekydes wrote: »

Where do you get coca powder? :eek:

Nourish Health food shops or any health food shop I'd imagine.

Timmaay

Very dodgy thread title!

marathonm@n

As mentioned try to look for a juicer with under 120rpm so as not to ruin the nutrient etc content. Have a matstone 6000. great for the wheatgrass etc

maryishairy

Timmaay wrote: »

Very dodgy thread title!

My thoughts exactly.

I thought I was going to be a reading about a runner with a good angel on one shoulder, a devil on his other and a syringe full of EPO in front of him.....will I.....won't I????

SamforMayo

JohnnyCrash wrote: »

Hi folks,dont know if this is the correct place to post this,but im looking for runners opinions on this as opposed to general ones. Just bought a juicer/blender for herself(new years detox etc...;)) and thought I may as well get some use out of it myself.
Does anyone on here juice,and if so,any recipes for energy and recovery juices? Cheers in advance.

Well are nt you the lovely gent buying a juicer for the mrs that you wanted yourself!!!!!

JohnnyCrash

skittles8710 wrote: »

Hi Johnny,

Thinking of giving the juicing a go myself. Which blender did ye get? I've been given a voucher but not sure which one to go for.. Let me know how you get on with it.

Its a G3FERRARI 2 in 1 Juice extractor-Blender. Got it in DID,reduced to 75 quid.

JohnnyCrash

cullenswood wrote: »

Are you not better off eating the full fruit itself....ie eating an full orange, rather than the juice from it, to get the fibre content and other nutrients that are not in the juice alone?

From what ive read and I quote"Because juicing removes indigestible fibre in fruits and vegetables,the nutrients are available to the body in much larger quantities than if the piece of fruit or vegetable were eaten whole.For example,when you eat a raw carrot you are able to assimilate only about 1 per cent of the available beta-carotene,because many of the nutrients are trapped in the fibre.When a carrot is juiced,thereby removing the fibre,nearly 100 per cent of the beta-carotene can be assimilated."

JohnnyCrash

Timmaay wrote: »

Very dodgy thread title!

A very dodgy mind would think it a very dodgy thread title:D

inigo

JohnnyCrash wrote: »

From what ive read and I quote"Because juicing removes indigestible fibre in fruits and vegetables,the nutrients are available to the body in much larger quantities than if the piece of fruit or vegetable were eaten whole.For example,when you eat a raw carrot you are able to assimilate only about 1 per cent of the available beta-carotene,because many of the nutrients are trapped in the fibre.When a carrot is juiced,thereby removing the fibre,nearly 100 per cent of the beta-carotene can be assimilated."

Ok... But maybe our bodies are not designed to assimilate so much of anything in particular in one go, be it beta-carotene, sugar or anything else. Humans evolved eating a variety of whole foods, i.e. including their fibre, etc. I can't imagine a juicer in a cave... I'm thinking it may be ok to do juices as a top up if you're lacking a particular nutrient but only occasionally and while increasing ingestion of whole foods rich in that nutrient. I wouldn't do it otherwise, but I'm not an expert and the above is just an opinion.

JohnnyCrash

inigo wrote: »

Ok... But maybe our bodies are not designed to assimilate so much of anything in particular in one go, be it beta-carotene, sugar or anything else. Humans evolved eating a variety of whole foods, i.e. including their fibre, etc. I can't imagine a juicer in a cave... I'm thinking it may be ok to do juices as a top up if you're lacking a particular nutrient but only occasionally and while increasing ingestion of whole foods rich in that nutrient. I wouldn't do it otherwise, but I'm not an expert and the above is just an opinion.

Humans evolved is the key,thats why we have juicers:D If cavemen had to have them,maybe they would have lived longer than their 35.5 years average,ha ha ha. But seriously,I would not be replacing meals with juice,I would be using it as a supplement.

Aimman

inigo wrote: »

Ok... But maybe our bodies are not designed to assimilate so much of anything in particular in one go, be it beta-carotene, sugar or anything else. Humans evolved eating a variety of whole foods, i.e. including their fibre, etc. I can't imagine a juicer in a cave... I'm thinking it may be ok to do juices as a top up if you're lacking a particular nutrient but only occasionally and while increasing ingestion of whole foods rich in that nutrient. I wouldn't do it otherwise, but I'm not an expert and the above is just an opinion.

My understanding that I have pick up from hearing some discussions on the topic is that to properly break down the sugars etc from the juice, it needs the fleshly parts because the fibres etc help to break the juice down. If the body doesn't know how to handle the juice, it will store most of its sugars to fat to be broken down at a later date.

For the nerds in us, the veg/fruit flesh with it's specifice fibres is like an unlocking code that helps the body break the juice down efficiently.

TFBubendorfer

JohnnyCrash wrote: »

From what ive read and I quote"Because juicing removes indigestible fibre in fruits and vegetables,the nutrients are available to the body in much larger quantities than if the piece of fruit or vegetable were eaten whole.For example,when you eat a raw carrot you are able to assimilate only about 1 per cent of the available beta-carotene,because many of the nutrients are trapped in the fibre.When a carrot is juiced,thereby removing the fibre,nearly 100 per cent of the beta-carotene can be assimilated."

I'm not a nutritionist but I've read a fair amount on the subject and up to now I've never heard a claim that fibres stop the absorption of nutrients. Quite the opposite, the more fibres you have in your diet the better (up to a point obviously and there can be timing issues but that's a different matter).

Personally I would take the book where you got that from and chuck it straight into the bin, but that's just me.

JohnnyCrash

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

I'm not a nutritionist but I've read a fair amount on the subject and up to now I've never heard a claim that fibres stop the absorption of nutrients. Quite the opposite, the more fibres you have in your diet the better (up to a point obviously and there can be timing issues but that's a different matter).

Personally I would take the book where you got that from and chuck it straight into the bin, but that's just me.

Ill bin it along with my book on stretching;)

Timmaay

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

I'm not a nutritionist but I've read a fair amount on the subject and up to now I've never heard a claim that fibres stop the absorption of nutrients. Quite the opposite, the more fibres you have in your diet the better (up to a point obviously and there can be timing issues but that's a different matter).

fibres or fibre? I know from my agri background that if an animal is lacking fibre in their diet, their dung will be pure watery, aka the scutters! Not really something that I'd advise inflicting on yourself, it can happen often enough while doing a hard session etc anyways :P

TFBubendorfer

Timmaay wrote: »

fibres or fibre? I know from my agri background that if an animal is lacking fibre in their diet, their dung will be pure watery, aka the scutters! Not really something that I'd advise inflicting on yourself, it can happen often enough while doing a hard session etc anyways :P

DOH, my bad. I meant fibre of course!

JohnnyCrash

Timmaay wrote: »

fibres or fibre? I know from my agri background that if an animal is lacking fibre in their diet, their dung will be pure watery, aka the scutters! Not really something that I'd advise inflicting on yourself, it can happen often enough while doing a hard session etc anyways :P

Don't get me wrong guys,im not looking to replace whole fruit and veg with the juice of same,just supplement it. Ive also read somewhere that to get all the nutrients,vitamins etc..that you need daily from veg,you would have to consume 1lb per 50lbs of body weight (I know Thomas,i'll bin that one too,ha ha).That's about 3.5lbs in my case:eek:.

TFBubendorfer

I've got 4 kids and getting fruit into them is a daily battle. However, they do like smoothies or fruit juices. While I would prefer them to eat their fruit whole and unprocessed, juiced stuff is an awful lot better than nothing at all and definitely preferable to stuff like coke or such.

Same for us runners here. Any adult who can't face eating fruit would get a lot of benefits by juicing if that's the only way of getting that stuff inside. I'd still recommend eating fruit as unprocessed as possible, though.

inigo

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

I've got 4 kids and getting fruit into them is a daily battle. However, they do like smoothies or fruit juices. While I would prefer them to eat their fruit whole and unprocessed, juiced stuff is an awful lot better than nothing at all and definitely preferable to stuff like coke or such.

Same for us runners here. Any adult who can't face eating fruit would get a lot of benefits by juicing if that's the only way of getting that stuff inside. I'd still recommend eating fruit as unprocessed as possible, though.

I see your point, but allow me a piece of advice/warning, because this thread has reminded me of a friend's child: before the age of 10 the boy had more tooth fillings than I do at the moment at over 40! And it was mainly due to 100% fruit juice (freshly squeezed and from concentrate), for the simple reason that we are likely to ingest more sugar by drinking juice than by eating the whole fruit, i.e. it's easier to drink a large glass of orange juice than to eat 2/3 oranges in one go and some people don't seem to realise that... But forgive me if you do!

JohnnyCrash

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

I've got 4 kids and getting fruit into them is a daily battle. However, they do like smoothies or fruit juices. While I would prefer them to eat their fruit whole and unprocessed, juiced stuff is an awful lot better than nothing at all and definitely preferable to stuff like coke or such.

Same for us runners here. Any adult who can't face eating fruit would get a lot of benefits by juicing if that's the only way of getting that stuff inside. I'd still recommend eating fruit as unprocessed as possible, though.

inigo wrote: »

I see your point, but allow me a piece of advice/warning, because this thread has reminded me of a friend's child: before the age of 10 the boy had more tooth fillings than I do at the moment at over 40! And it was mainly due to 100% fruit juice (freshly squeezed and from concentrate), for the simple reason that we are likely to ingest more sugar by drinking juice than by eating the whole fruit, i.e. it's easier to drink a large glass of orange juice than to eat 2/3 oranges in one go and some people don't seem to realise that... But forgive me if you do!

This seems to be a common misconception about juicing,no? Its not all about fruit. I know that fruit juice has a high sugar content but I would be juicing mostly vegetables,a lot of which have low sugars,and adding a little of the lower sugar fruits to make it more palatable.

Marthastew

I've copied an excerpt from my log from early January when I did a 3 day Juice detox, I'm generally quite a healthy eater and don't agree with fad diets etc. but I was keen to try it out. 2 weeks later I'm back enjoying too much coffee again but I'm not eating junk, I've regained 1 kilo of the weight I lost. I really liked the juices and smoothies and I have one every few days along with my normal diet.


3 Day Jason Vale Detox.....

Why detox? When it comes to diet (in fact when it comes to a lot of things in life) I’m a great believer in moderation, however I also firmly believe in each to their own and I enjoy reading the diet-related threads that sometimes pop up on this forum. I found Theboyblunder’s posts on the most recent discussion very interesting and food for thought (pun intended) and the theory (fact?) that messing with diet can drastically change our metabolism did spring to mind before I embarked on this diet. However I also felt that it couldn’t be any worse for me than the red wine + cheese +chocolate diet I had been on over Christmas (Christmas lasted all of December for us) and I wanted something radical to shift my mind-set. I hadn’t gained too much weight but I knew my diet wasn’t healthy and the LSR on the 27th was a stark reminder that running is very much influenced by diet. I know exactly what a healthy diet is and probably should have just cut out junk and left it at that but I really liked the idea of kick-starting the process and a friend of mine mentioned she was doing it so I said I’d give it a go. I downloaded the app (http://www.juicemaster.com/) and hey presto… I was on my way to a healthy liver! Having decided to give my yet-again niggly calf a rest I knew I wouldn’t be running much on these days so the time seemed right.

What is it? The programme I chose basically consists of a juice or smoothie for breakfast, lunch and dinner and unlimited water or H20 detox (three quarters water, with apple, pineapple, lemon and beetroot juice). The juices were mostly vegetable based and blended with an avocado to increase the calorie and nutrient values.

Pros? It made me dust off my juicer and reminded me that I do in fact love juicing, I usually hate washing up after but this time round I realised that didn’t matter to me. Junior tried the beetroot, apple, spinach juice and loved it, anything that gets my boys eating healthier gets my vote. (The older 2 opted to stick with carrot and apple and think beetroot is too earthy). You are supposed to wake up on a juice-high on the 4th day… I woke not quite on a high but full of energy (although I had been going to bed early each night so that could be the reason). The programme suggests you can lose up to 5lbs, I lost 2kgs, which given the fact that I’m not overweight seems about right. I’m sure most of this weight will come back on now that I’m eating normally again, but it feels good to be starting the year without the extra Christmas weight.

Cons? I drink a lot of coffee, so this was always going to be hard for me, the first thing I do every morning is head straight for my beloved Nespresso machine and I start the day with 3 (yes, 3) cups, often having 2 more that morning. I naturally had bad caffeine withdrawal headaches and felt sluggish and sleepy all throughout the detox, I drank glass after glass of hot water with lemon to counteract this. I honestly don’t think it would be possible to train seriously while on the detox, Mr Stew ran 2 days and found it very tough. I did one recovery run on the last day and it wasn’t too bad because I didn’t look at the pace at all, and I just took it really easy. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have gone any faster even if I tried although Jason Vale says he trained for and ran the London Maraton whilst juicing (of course I looked up his result, 4.13, a big positive split with a 1.48 first half) I really missed eating normal food but surprisingly instead of missing wine and chocolate I was craving eggs, fish and my brown bread. (This is in fact a pro; any diet that leaves you craving fish gets my vote!)

Did I cheat? Yes, on the first evening I was freezing cold and spotted some tomato soup in the fridge so I cracked and had a small bowl (how very bold of me!) You are advised to eat an avocado or carrot if you really must () and I ate a few of these each day. On the last day Mr S (who was also detoxing) decided to end his at lunchtime since he was planning an LSR the next day and he brought junior for a burger (he had been craving meat) feeling a little hard done by I ordered a decaf soya cappuccino (an acquired taste that I may never acquire)

Was it worth it? Yes, now that it’s over I’m glad I did it. I’m not sure I’d do it again or even recommend it but it certainly brought home to me that fact that I’m eating way too much food and it has left me craving healthy food rather than thinking of Rice Krispie buns. I'm also drinking a lot less coffee and still sleeping well.

TFBubendorfer

JohnnyCrash wrote: »

This seems to be a common misconception about juicing,no? Its not all about fruit. I know that fruit juice has a high sugar content but I would be juicing mostly vegetables,a lot of which have low sugars,and adding a little of the lower sugar fruits to make it more palatable.

Juicing vegetables is indeed an option (my wife really likes veggie juices), but getting the kids to drink them is a completely different task altogether!

melissa16

I love them!I'm recovering from surgery and am making a smoothie with cucumber,kale,pear,wheatgrass,mint and chia seeds. So yum!