The Unhealthiest “Health” Food
We start our mornings with one every single day.
Couple servings of fruit. Some satiating protein. A bit of healthy fat. And the almond milk is fortified with vitamin D to boot.
It’s a smoothie. And the one we make is incredible for you.
But the whole notion of "health" smoothies is a little overboard.
The idea of a smoothie implies a convenient, easy fat burning meal on the go.
In fact I was in the Charlotte airport the other day and saw a smoothie shop with a line that was easily 15 people deep.
Heck, I stopped there myself. The store is called Yovana. You can order yogurt with fresh fruit (not fruit syrupy junk) or you can order smoothies.
I opted for the yogurt parfait layered with fresh blueberries and raspberries. Good stuff.
But as I read the sign of some of the other options … they were high sugar/calorie bombs going incognito as health foods. Not far down the terminal there was also a Jamba Juice … with some of their "healthy" smoothies boasting an impressive 100+ grams of sugar! Smoothie King … same idea.
Talk about a simple way of sabotaging your fat loss goals!
The problem with any of these, though, is not as much that they are so high in sugar and calories (well, yes, that’s a problem too) … but rather it’s the fact that the assumption is smoothie = healthy.
While some smoothies are in fact fantastic for you, most are nothing more than expensive sodas hiding behind fancy fruit and "power" names. Wholesale clubs and grocery stores sell premix products (READ: premixed sugar to make it convenient for you to gain weight).
So what is your best bet?
Skip the smoothie chains or premixed products and make your own. Try different ingredients and mix it up — our staple is the one with frozen blueberries, frozen banana, a scoop of unflavored protein powder, and about 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk.
But we’ve been known to throw spinach, cayenne pepper, and other "strange" ingredients in there too — trust us, they’re great — and when mixed with other ingredients, you’ll never actually think you’re drinking liquid spinach (works well with chocolate protein powder and peanut butter)!
May 20th, 2010 at 7:43 am
Well, they have to make a living! And what better marketing ploy than to make people feel proud of themselves for having a treat.
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May 23rd, 2010 at 7:05 am
I’m glad you are making more people aware of the marketing lies that we get bombarded with all the time. The human body doesn’t differentiate between healthy & non-healthy, it just breaks down the macro nutrients we swallow. 100 grams of sugar is the same from a smoothie as is a quart of soda pop. Orange juice is nothing but soda with vitamin C added back in. ( The initial vitamins in the oranges have been cooked out and artificially added back in.) The ridiculous V8 commercials that make people think they are getting 3 servings of vegetables a day should be illegal. Thanks for the great posts!
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