Do centrifugal juicers destroy vitamins through friction?
I've read that in a couple of places.
Best Answer
Short answer is no. Vitamins are organic compounds (that is, compounds based on a carbon skeleton) which are pretty small: most of them are formed by 20-30 atoms, not more than that.
Mechanical stress, as well as thermic stress, can indeed interfere with the structure of big organic compounds such as proteins or DNA, which are called macromolecules and are formed by thousands or even millions of atoms connected in complex 3D structures. However, this is not the case for vitamins.
So, in substance, continue to drink your orange juice and you'll be fine!
EDIT: standing what I wrote, it is also interesting to consider that certain vitamins can be enzymatically degraded. This is for instance the case of vitamin C: this article demonstrates how vitamin C degradation could happen when processing broccoli at <60°C, due to the action of an enzyme called vitamin C oxydase. Of course this does not necessarily apply to other vegetables/fruit or to other vitamins.
Personally, I think that the passage of a fruit in a juicer is sufficiently fast that I really doubt there would be enough time for the vitamins to degrade. Would be an interesting experiment to do though.
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Do centrifugal juicers destroy nutrients?
So while it is possible, and widely accepted in the juicing community, that the heat and oxidation from centrifugal juicers creates a lesser quality juice, there is no current evidence that they destroy the nutrients in juice.Do juicers take out nutrients?
Juicing extracts the juice from fresh fruits or vegetables. The liquid contains most of the vitamins, minerals and plant chemicals (phytonutrients) found in the fruit. However, whole fruits and vegetables also have healthy fiber, which is lost during most juicing.Which juicer is better masticating or centrifugal?
Masticating juicersLess foaming and oxidation occurs using this method and it produces roughly 30% higher yield than centrifugal juicers. These juicers generally take more time and effort to use and they're more expensive too \u2014 for this reason they're best serious juicers and those who don't mind waiting.What is the difference between centrifugal and cold press juicer?
Centrifugal juicers don't cope well with leafy greens and much of it ends up as waste, but cold press juicers are much more effective at extracting juice from leaves like kale and spinach or even herbs like parsley.4 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Buy a Centrifugal Ejection Juicer
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Answer 2
There are two explanations usually given for why centrifugal juicers lose some of the nutritional value:
- frictional heating, supposedly from the higher speed of the moving parts (although it's never clearly explained where this comes into play, maybe from the juice splatting on the container)
- aeration of the juice (since there's usually more frothing with a centrifugal juicer), which causes the juice to oxidize more and faster.
This page is fairly typical of the explanations.
I'm personally not convinced that either of these is a huge issue, but OTOH I do like the twin-gear masticating juicer we have because it can juice anything and doesn't suffer from those supposed disadvantages of the centrifugal type.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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