Hi everyone this is Monica Reinagle the nutrition diva here with this week's quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous

listener Jeffrey writes,

I feel like I get plenty of fiber, but I recently heard that blending fruits in a smoothie

destroys the fiber.

Am I defeating my health goals by blending the fruit?

This is a question I get a lot, which is not surprising when you consider the popularity of smoothies and juicing.

But I get an equal number of emails from listeners who have heard

that blending fruits and vegetables ruptures the cell walls and then makes the

nutrients more absorbable. So which is it? Does liquefying your fruits and vegetables make them more

nutritious or less? To tell you the truth, although these two assertions about smoothies are

widespread on the internet, it's tough to find a whole lot of factual backup.

But there's an old saying that you don't have to know everything,

as long as you know where to look.

So for help in answering your questions, I turned to one of the smartest guys I know, Dr. Lee Phelan,

hosted the Fantastic Everyday Einstein Podcast, and he pointed me toward some great resources.

Thanks for the assistly.

So does blending destroy the fiber in foods? Remember that fiber isn't a single nutrient but a whole class of related compounds with similar functions in the body.

Even the classification of fiber is either soluble or insoluble, which I've talked about in past podcasts, even that is an oversimplification.

Like sugar and starches, fibers made up of carbohydrate molecules.

But unlike sugar and starches, our bodies cannot dissolve

the bonds between the individual carbohydrates and fiber, so these carbohydrates don't get

absorbed in the digestive system.

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