How Healthy is Your Smoothie?

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Smoothies are so “in” these days, everyone is making them or selling them. We like to think that by choosing to drink smoothies we are replacing a meal with a nutrition filled drink or we are rejecting unhealthy drinks and snacks. This is great logic, but is it sound? Are you sure your smoothie is really a healthy alternative? They can be.

If you go to most stores or stands that make and sell smoothies fresh, right on the spot, they usually consist of 3 ingredients, fruit, fruit juice, and sugar. Remove the sugar and it’s simply fruit. Some places add milk, soy milk, ice cream, yogurt, coffee, peanut butter, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. Healthy? In a word, no.

First, let’s take a look at the 4 basic types of smoothies.

1. Smoothies Made with Junk Food But Listed as Healthy

These are the ones that have agave nectar, pasteurized honey, milk, soymilk, and commercial peanut butter. You find these in an awful lot of health food stores and gyms that don’t know any better. Sometimes they try to convince you that it’s healthy because they can add cheap nutrition powders, soy powder, and other types of cheap, chemical vitamin powders.

2. Plain Old Outright Junk Food Smoothies

You know these, generally made with ice cream; they have these really healthy sounding names such as Very Berry or Strawberry Kiwi. These make you think they contain nothing more than fruit, but ask what’s in them, and that will tell you all you need to know.

3. Healthy Smoothies

These are usually made with any combination of healthy foods, such as spinach, wheatgrass, a bit of raw organic honey, and/or any combination of fruit. These won’t have any unhealthy additives or other ingredients. In fact most times these types of smoothies are advertised as containing only organic fruits and veggies.

4. Healthy Smoothies WITH added nutrition

These are, without a doubt, the very best. Not only is every ingredient in your smoothie good for you but they also contain high quality protein powders, superfoods such as spirulina, or other types of nutrition powders that are made with whole, clean foods. This type of smoothies is capable of restoring or maintaining health.

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