No, You Can’t Juice a Banana (or These Other Fruits!)

TBH, bananas and your juicer are kind of like oil and water or Tiger King and Carole Baskin.

When you nosh on a ’nanner, you’ll notice the carby, starchy texture — not a ton of water content. Even though bananas are technically about 75 percent water, many of the most juiceable fruits and veggies are well over 90 percent water. Those are a much better match for your juicer.

And if you *try* to juice a banana, even with the fanciest of machines, you won’t have much luck isolating that three-quarters water content. Instead, you’ll get something that pretty much resembles a banana-colored poop emoji, minus the smile.

Try a banana smoothie instead:

• 1 frozen banana, chopped
• 1/2 orange, peeled and quartered
• 1/3 cup Greek yogurt or dairy-free yogurt
• 1/4 cup milk or dairy-free milk sub
• 1–2 teaspoons honey or agave (optional)

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

Avocados are what healthy fat dreams are made of. They’re also a nemesis of juicers everywhere.

Sure, they’re rich in vitamin K and folate, high in vitamin C and potassium, and packed with a lot of other good stuff. But that doesn’t mean they can be juiced into a green bevvy!

Avocado’s creamy, thick consistency just won’t work in your juicer. But on the bright side, it’ll make your smoothie creamy and delicious.

Try a green smoothie instead:

• 2 cups spinach
• 2 cups frozen pineapple chunks
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 medium ripe avocado, pitted and peeled
• 1–2 tablespoons honey or agave (optional)

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

Bloobs are considered a superfood for good reason. They’re full of vitamins, antioxidants, and dietary fiber.

Technically, you *can* juice blueberries. But their texture and consistency, combined with their small size, means they won’t yield a ton of juice.

Try this juicing method: You’re better off adding blueberries to your smoothie than juicing them. But if you do decide to juice them, try blending them first. Then, you can pour the blended blueberries through a fine-mesh strainer and add them to another type of fresh juice or a juice mixture.

The juice will be slightly thicker, but you’ll get a much better bang for your buck (and better juice content for your blueberries).

Another juicy tip: Freezing fresh berries and then slightly thawing them will soften them and make it easier to squeeze out more juice.

Cherries are another berry powerhouse def worth adding to your diet — but maybe not to your juicer. As with blueberries, you *can* juice them, but because of their texture, it’s tough to get an impressive yield.

Try this juicing method: To successfully juice these antioxidant-rich berries, you’ll need to remove the pits first — which, TBH, can be kind of a pain. As with blueberries, you can get a bigger juice yield by blending cherries and then pouring your blended cherries through a fine-mesh strainer into a concoction of other juices.

Another juicy tip: A bit of cherry juice can add a punch of sweet-tart flavor to easy-to-juice fruits and veggies like apples, oranges, and spinach. You can also always add some to your smoothie!

Figs have become a cooking, baking, and snacking staple — but figs + a juicer is def not a match made in heaven. Their unique texture is part of what makes them great, but it’s also what makes them a nightmare for a juice press.

In addition to being tasty, they contain calcium, potassium, magnesium, and phosphorus. But if you juice them, it’ll result in basically no liquid and a lot of mush.

Try a fig smoothie instead:

• 4 figs, halved
• 1 cup milk or dairy-free milk sub
• 1/2 frozen banana
• 1–2 dates
• 1 tablespoon almond or peanut butter

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

Mangoes are called the king of fruits in places like India for good reason. They take the fruit crown partly because of their rich, creamy texture and tropical flavor. They also offer impressive nutritional content with vitamins A, C, B6, and plenty of magnesium and potassium.

That being said, their texture is just not ideal for juicing. (Ditto with their sister fruit papayas.) Instead, you can peel ’em, pit ’em, and stick ’em in a smoothie.

Try a mango smoothie instead:

• 2 fresh mangoes or 2 cups frozen mango
• 1 small frozen banana
• 1/2 cup milk or dairy-free milk sub
• 1/2 cup yogurt or dairy-free yogurt

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

Strawberry-rhubarb jam is delicious, but strawberry-rhubarb juice is fictitious. Dreams of a magical, tarty-sweet juice are sadly out of reach.

Rhubarb has lots of fiber, which is great for your digestive system but bad for your juicer. In fact, trying to put this tough-AF fruit into your machine could potentially damage it, so don’t take the risk!

Try a strawberry-rhubarb smoothie instead:

• 1 1/2 cups frozen rhubarb
• 1 1/2 cups frozen strawberries
• 1 1/2 cups milk or dairy-free milk sub
• 2/3 cup açaí or pomegranate juice
• 1 1/2 tablespoons honey or agave

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

Coconut meat is full of healthy fats, copper, iron, and antioxidants and has a rich flavor that will immediately make you want to lounge on a beach in the tropics. (Just us? 🏝)

While you can def add some store-bought coconut water or milk to your at-home juice concoction, you’ll want to keep raw coconut away from your juicer.

The whole nut is obvs overkill for your machine, but even the tender coconut meat is too tough to juice. Trying to do it could seriously tax even the sturdiest at-home juicer — and it wouldn’t even result in any liquid. *Womp, womp*

Here’s a juicy tip: If you have a whole coconut on your hands, cracking it open can be a process. But with a little strength and finesse, it *is* totally doable. Here’s one way to do it:

1. Find the three holes at the end of the coconut stem.
2. Using a screwdriver, check to see which one’s the softest. Now pierce it!
3. Shake the liquid into a bowl or glass to get all the water out.
4. Now, on to the meat. First, preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
5. Place the coconut on a sheet pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until the hard outer shell starts to crack.
6. Take the coconut out of the oven and set aside until it’s cool enough to touch.
7. Wrap it in a kitchen towel. Holding it with one hand, tap it with the back of a cleaver or hit it with a hammer. Be careful — you’ll need to hit it several times before it softens enough to pry open.
8. Use a spoon to separate the coconut meat from the shell.

If you opt to bravely crack open a whole coconut, you can pour the water straight into your juice mixture. You can also carve out the meat and blend it with fruits like bananas, mangoes, and papayas.

Frozen fruit makes for an icy-sweet treat in juice blends — with some caveats. Most of the time, the fruit will be too hard for direct freezer-to-juicer action. It’s generally better to save frozen fruit for your blender.

Try this juicing method: Thaw frozen fruit a bit by running it under some warm water or letting it sit out for 10 to 15 mins before putting it in your juicer. The flesh should be somewhat squishy to the touch — not hard as a rock.

Another juicy tip: Juicing frozen fruit also depends on the strength and type of your machine. A masticating juicer, which grinds the fruit (instead of using extracting teeth, like a centrifugal juicer), will work better for more solid fruit.

If your machine’s not the strongest or highest powered on the market, frozen fruit might cause it to struggle — or even damage it.

Some fruits just aren’t juicy enough to juice! Bananas, avocados, figs, mangoes, rhubarb, and coconut fall into this category. Instead, toss them in a blender.

You can blend the fruit into smoothies or add blended fruit puree to a juice for a little extra texture and flavor.