The presence of fiber alone doesn’t necessarily offer these kinds of health benefits. It largely has to do with the structure of the fiber and if it’s affecting

The presence of fiber alone doesn’t necessarily offer these kinds of health benefits. It largely has to do with the structure of the fiber and if it’s affecting the speed of digestion of the food. A smoothie is far less healthy than the unprocessed fruit (assuming nothing else is added to the smoothie) simply because the act of blending the fruit liberates the sugars from inside the cells, allowing faster absorption (and resulting in insulin spikes/crashes). Any fiber is still better than none, but it’s not just a matter of amounts.