Does Spinach Lose Nutritional Value When Blended

What’s the point in making a green smoothie with spinach if it turns out that the spinach lost most of it’s nutritioanl value when blended? That’s a reasonable point, and so it’s also a reasonable question to ask when it comes to making smoothies.

Does spinach (or any other leafy green for that matter) lose it’s value when you put it into a blender and blend it?

That is the question which this article is seeks to answer. We will look at what exactly happens when you blend spinach and how it impacts it’s nutritional value.

What Does Your Blender Do To Spinach?

So, before we get started, just what exactly does a blender do to spinach? Or, for that matter, what does a blender do to any vegetable or fruit that it blends?

The essence of any blender is the blender blades. These blades tear apart the spinach or other ingredients and turn it into a more easily consumed smoothie or shake. The more you blend it, the more it’s broken down.

But what is broken down in a blender? Is the nutritional value broken down or lost?

A blender doesn’t destroy anything. In fact, I wrote a long article about this recently. It’s titled: Do Bledners Destoy Fiber?

What blenders do acomplish, is breaking things down into more manageable pieces and make it easier to have more nutrients at one sitting.

That’s why everyone from athleates and health concious folks to babbies and old people like to use blenders. A smoothie can be a green power smoothie for an athleate who wants to recover from a big workout, to a young baby who has parents use the blender to make baby food.

Blenders do one essential thing, and that is to help breakdown the fiber to make things more palatable. And more easy to digest.

It’s the reason why you can easily consume a glass that contains a spinach smoothie, but not as easily eat a giant bowl of spinach. The fiber is more difficult to process when it is not blended into a smoothie.

 

Does Spinach Lose Nutritional Value When Blended?

No. Point blank, for all intents and purposes, spinach does not lose any of it’s nutritional value when it’s blended.

However, that is not to say that there are no differences between blended spinach, raw spinach, and spinach that you put through a juicer. There are subtle differences that we need to address. Many studies studieshave focused on raw or cooked spinach, but the growing trends among health practioners is to suggest smoothies.

Juiced Spinach is spinach that you put through a juice extractor. This can be done using either a cold press juicer, or a regular juicer. When you use a juicer to make green juices, you are losing some of the fiber. And fiber is beneficial. So, in that way, a blender is a superior way to get spinach into your diet. The vitamins and other nutrients in spinach are preserved in the juice, even more so if you use a cold press juicer.

When you eat a raw spinach salad, nothing is destroyred. There is no juicing or blending, so not one single nutrient is lost. However, you cannot get as many nutrients because of all of the fiber. Spinach juice and a spinach smoothie will contain more nutrients because they contain more spinach. You could easily blend up a large bowl of spinach plus some tasty blueberries and drink it for lunch, whereas a big spinach salad would be too much and make you feel full.

Blending, on the othe hand, preserves more nutrients especially fiber, then juicing. However, the heat of the blender can sometimes create excessive temperatures that can damage the nutrients. If there is too much heat, then you will damage and detroy nutrients. The way around this is to get a blender that has a powerful blender that won’t run hot and won’t overheat. Also, it’s wise to not run your blender for too long a time, especially if you’re making a smoothie.

Is Juicing Spinach Better than Blending Spinach?

So, the next question that deserves some attention is if you would be better off juicing or blending spinach? Is there a difference in nutrients in the two? And besides the difference in nutrients, is there any other compelling reason to juice spinach as opposed to making it into a smoothie.

First, let’s examine how you would make a spinach juice. This will help answer the main concern: does spinach lose nutritional value when blended or juiced?

You would need a juicer. You really can’t juice with a blender. There is a whole process wherein people try to make juices with their blenders, but it’s just not a suitable practice. First of, the blender will not extract any fiber or seperate the fiber from the juice. What you end up with in a blender is a smoothie.

If you wanted to make a juice from a blender, you’d have to go through a big process of straining out the fiber using a mesh screen. It’s not only time consuming, but it’s a big mess. So, scratch that idea off the plate.

Next, assuming that you do have a proper juicer, the next step involves prepping the spinach to make the juice. In many cases you will need to cut up the spinach before placing it into the juicer. This is because juicers, especially the good ones that are “Cold Press” are not capable of breaking down as much spinach at a single time as a blender is.

Finally, you will juice the spinach, which takes longer to do that blending it, and you will get a glass of green spinach juice. Then you have to disassemble the juicer and clean it.

All in all, it’s a longer process than making a green smoothie and one that also isn’t optimal from a heath viewpoint. You are getting too much oxaliac acid if you drink pure spinach juice (the acid isn’t in the fiber, so it’s concentraded when you make juice).

Now, let’s look at how you make a green smoothie with spinach.

When you are making spinach with a blender, you’re going to be making green smoothies. Not juice. They are two seperate things. A smoothie has more of the fiber retainted than the juice. The juice will have mostly the nutrients in liquid form, and almost none of the fiber.

Unlike a juicer, when you use a blender to blend up spinach you don’t have to deal with pulp. Everything that goes into the blender can be consumed. There is no “waste product” like there is with a juicer.

The blades in your blender will slowly dice up and chop up the spinach and whatever else you place into the blender with the spinach. They will all be blended up into a smoothie. How smooth your smoothie is depends upon the type of blender that you use as well as the length of time you blend everything in the blender.

How To Retain Nutritional Value When Blending Spinach?

My main suggestions on how to retain nutritional value when blending spinach, or any other vegetable for that matter, is to not overblend.

Everyone wants a nice, smooth smoohtie. But if you overblend, then you’re going to create too much heat which can destroy the nutrients.

So, your options are either to get a good blender that can handle belnding greens, or else buy microgreens that don’t require as much blending power.

I’ve got a whole write up on the best blender for green smoothies. It covers topics including what type of greens to blend, how to blend them, how to preserve their nutritioanl value, and also what blenders to get.