On the other hand, a famous heath advocate declares, “I am advising the people wherever I go to give up liquid food as much as possible.”[ii] “Taken in a liquid state, your food would not give healthful vigor or tone to the system.”[iii] “Solid foods requiring mastication will be far better than mush or liquid foods.”[iv]

    As a medical doctor, who lectures on lifestyle medicine concerns, I am frequently approached with questions about the health benefits of juicing and/or the drinking of smoothies.

     It is essential to evaluate the origin of a health practice before you recommend it. “Juice therapy has long been a component of the 5,000 year-old tradition of Ayurveda. Ayurveda was a traditional system of medicine that originated in India.”[v] This Ancient Indian Healing Tradition involves believing in universal energy called prana—energy that is believed to travel through the body via channels called chakras.[vi] Ayurveda is concerned with achieving balance in body and mind by restoring the balance of three elements, or factors...VATA, PITTA and KAPHA (Air, Fire and Water) of which the body is made. Juice is said to be important to balance these elements.[vii] I would show you a picture of the Hindu god Dhanvantari behind all this, but the god is poorly clad and I won’t risk offending your sense of modesty. “It is common practice in Hinduism for worshipers to pray to Dhanvantari seeking his blessings for sound health for themselves and/or others, especially on Dhanteras.”[viii]

     It is important to note that your body handles liquid foods differently than it handles solid foods.

     More happens in the mouth than many appreciate. The immune tissue in the mouth and throat, like the tonsils, tests substances coming into the body to let the body know what is being eaten as food.[ix]^{,[x],[xi],[xii],[xiii]} Allergy, inflammation and autoimmune diseases are more likely to flair up when food is not chewed long and well, when the body has not had sufficient time or impetus to identify the incoming antigens.[xiv]^,[xv] One technique of alternative allergists is to take a food to which someone is allergic and make a liquid tincture out of it, then have the person hold this tincture under their tongue for 15 minutes prior to eating, thus presenting it to the testing cells of the mouth (dendritic cells), which, in turn will lower the sensitivity of the body to that substance. Chewing your food long, thoroughly, and well are part of avoiding or preventing annoying food sensitivity diseases.

     Most people making liquid meals are not careful to follow good food combining principles. They intake a large variety of food at each meal in their smoothies or juices as though they had to balance their entire life’s nutritional requirements in one sitting.  This confuses the stomach. Each type of food takes a different digestive approach.  You may realize that your body reacts very differently to a lemon than it does to broccoli. Excessive variety, as encountered in a complex meal comprised of multiple diverse foods or complex smoothies, can provoke allergy, inflammation and autoimmunity.[xvi]

     Super blenders are capable of making a drink of almost any solid food.  When solids are whizzed up with liquid in a blender they are atomized into nano-particles.  These nano-particles then tend to absorb into the bloodstream unchecked by the usual filtering mechanisms provided by the wall of the intestines. This is like a dangerous condition referred to as leaky gut syndrome.[xvii] This has been the drawback to homogenization of milk.[xviii],[xix],[xx] When these nano-particles enter unfiltered in the blood stream the body can develop sensitivities and/or unhealthy reactions.

     Juicing has gained considerable popularity in the alternative and integrative approach to cancer therapy. One such system is that of Gerson. Gerson therapy focuses on the role of minerals, enzymes, hormones, and other dietary factors thought to restore health and well-being. The daily regimen calls for drinking 13 glasses of juice from fresh, organic fruits, vegetables and calves' livers, and eating vegetarian meals prepared from organically grown fruits, vegetables and whole grains.[xxi]

     Do large multi national epidemiological studies support juicing as effective for fighting cancer? March 4-6, 2008 I attended the Fifth International Congress on Vegetarian Nutrition. Over 700 attended representing over 40 countries. This congress has become the premiere scientific conference on plant-based diets. Scientists from a dozen different countries shared the podium to impart their evidence for the efficacy of vegetarian nutrition. In many cases we were asked not to photograph the presenters slides as they contained unpublished data.  In one such lecture a presenter from Europe revealed his data from several countries on the benefit of vegetable consumption for the prevention of cancer.  One slide showed that consumption of the recommended servings of whole vegetables reduced the risk of cancer by 30% (OR 0.7), while for the same population, consumption of the vegetables as juice raised the risk for cancer by 30% (OR 1.3).[xxii] In other words, juicing increases the risk of cancer.

     One rationale often sighted for the use of liquid food is that nutrients are absorbed more quickly and go straight to the cells. One example might be sugar.  The removal of fiber from food in juicing or blending and physically disrupting the fiber can result in faster nutrient ingestion as well as absorption. This can result in decreased satisfaction and disturbed glucose control. Drinking your meals often results in the blood sugar rising faster and higher than the body can control. This causes excessive insulin production with resultant low blood sugars (hypoglycemia). Because liquids have less fiber or disrupted fiber, people drinking their meals tend to get hungry again sooner, before next scheduled mealtime.[xxiii]  These effects favor over-nutrition and, if often repeated, could lead to diabetes²³,[xxiv] For the diabetic, juice drinking spells high blood sugar or hyperglycemia.[xxv]  

     Another example of unbridled absorption and subsequent health compromise is the case of oxalate as found in such commonly liquefied foods as spinach. Oxalate is a component of some painful renal compromising kidney stones. People who make liquid nutrition a significant portion of their food intake have been documented to suffer from oxalate overload and kidney stone formation.[xxvi]

     That’s the story for sugar and oxalate, what about other nutrients driven out of balance by liquefying them? Kale is another example. kale juice can even drive down thyroid function.[xxvii] So what are you going to juice.  My personal recommendation is to use medicinal teas, where you can be more selective on the nutrients you are wanting.

     Hearty chewing is part of good appetite control. Juices are significantly less satisfying than purées, sauces or smoothies. Purées, sauces or smoothies are significantly less satisfying than whole fruit.[xxviii],[xxix],[xxx] The faster food is eaten the more calories are typically eaten. People drinking more liquid food tend to eat faster and gain more weight.[xxxi],[xxxii]

     Choosing foods that require more chewing can help reduce the number of calories eaten and help with weight management. Thorough chewing increases food satisfaction and decreases appetite.[xxxiii] The more you chew, the less food it takes to satisfy your appetite.[xxxiv] Appetite is reduced by nerve feedback from the teeth to the brain when you chew something that is hard.[xxxv] Liquid nutrition does not engage the teeth as solid foods would, thus it does not satisfy the appetite as does solid foods.

     Liquids consumed with a solid meal do not decrease the amount of food eaten, they just tend to add to the total number of calories eaten.[xxxvi] If you drink with your meal you will tend to eat the same amount of food, plus the liquid, this will just add to your weight gain.

     When the intestine does not sense the presence of substantial fiber in the food the appetite is not suppressed and over nutrition can result.[xxxvii],[xxxviii] People who eat more fiber will tend to eat fewer calories and be less apt to become obese and get diabetes.[xxxix],[xl] This effect is not limited to the meal currently being eaten, low natural fiber content in food makes it so the person will eat a greater amount of food at the next meal too.[xli]

     Most any food or drink that raises your insulin to high levels also raises your cholesterol, as has been demonstrated with some forms of liquid nutrition.[xlii]

     Digestion begins in your mouth. You need saliva with amylase and other enzymes to digest your food properly and for you to get all the nutrients you need from it. Solid foods in your mouth that require extensive chewing stimulate the saliva glands to produce a greater volume and better quality of saliva to begin digestion.[xliii],[xliv] Saliva is rich in enzymes, cofactors and water necessary to process your food. How hard you chew determines how much saliva will be produced and how loaded it will be in enzymes. Dry foods stimulate the glands to produce even more saliva higher in amylase than liquid foods.[xlv] If you are quickly drinking down smoothies or juices, enzymes will be missing from your digestion, digestion will be incomplete, nutrients from the valuable food you are eating will be unavailable to you and you could become deficient in some necessary nutrient. 

     “But I don’t have enough time to eat, I’m in a hurry!” Stress decreases saliva production.[xlvi] If you do not have enough time to eat, better to skip the meal and just drink water than to slurp down a smoothie.  Stressed living is the source of many modern ailments. Failing to plan adequate time for meals and substituting with liquid nutrition are not healthy.

     For children, eating foods that require more chewing builds the jaw, spreads the teeth and makes it more likely that they will not need braces from an orthodontist to straighten out their bite.[xlvii],[xlviii]

     Juicing takes juice away from the whole fruit or vegetable. The processing results in a reduction in vitamins and minerals, because the nutrient-rich skin and fiber is left behind or the fiber is disrupted with blending.

     In the stomach, a liquid meal just makes for more work; the excess fluid must be absorbed before serious digestion can begin.[xlix],[l] Having not spent much time in the mouth, the fluid is in danger of being warmer or colder than what the stomach likes, thus hampering or even delaying digestion.[li]

     Many people suffer with reflux disease. For the esophagus, a liquid taken into the stomach just tends to put it at greater risk for reflux and the associated heart burn.[lii],[liii] Solid food stays down much better.

     Fiber is the bulk in food that gives it body or fullness.  When a meal, complete with unprocessed natural fiber enters the intestines, it provides bulk, which stretches the intestinal walls. When the walls or the intestines sense stretching, they send a signal to the stomach to cut back on acid and digestion.  Juices and smoothies with disrupted fiber do not provide this stimulus for acid reduction; the stomach continues to make too much acid and heart burn, reflux and indigestion can be the result.²⁸

     When predigested liquid meals such as juices are substituted instead of whole foods the intestines atrophy.[liv] Intestines that are atrophied are more prone to disease and poor absorption of nutrients.

     Good dietary fiber is important for the health of the intestines, it reduces inflammation and as it breaks down it actually feeds healthy intestinal flora.[lv]  We call this good fiber prebiotics.

     Where does all this liquid food end up that goes rushing into the blood stream?  The filters are the kidneys and they really suffer, not to mention, until the kidneys do clear the murk out of the blood you may experience some brain fog. Liquid food is a major hazard in kidney failure.

     I am not saying to never take a sip of juice.  Pointing out the disadvantages of some lifestyle practice is not a complete condemnation of it entirely.  Situations where a little liquid food could be lifesaving would include someone with dangerously low blood sugar, or someone who has extreme debilitating fatigue.

     “Taken in a liquid state, your food would not give healthful vigor or tone to the system. But when you change this habit, and eat more solids and less liquids, your stomach will feel disturbed. Notwithstanding this, you should not yield the point; you should educate your stomach to bear a more solid diet.”[lvi]

     Habits are difficult to change, and some of these practices we have embraced unwittingly. But God loves us and is willing to supply the power for positive change.  Aren’t you glad we serve a God like that?

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