Smoothies, Juices, and SUGAR

Typical smoothie Ingredients

We’ve all seen ads for “healthy” smoothies. Smoothie shops are everywhere and most convenience stores and some fast-food establishments sell their own versions of this popular “health food.”

Maybe, like me, you have a special blender to make your own smoothies at home.

What about “healthy” juice? Have you ever bought one freshly made at a shop or little kiosk? Or do you buy them already bottled at your favorite health food store, vegan restaurant, or supermarket?

Or again, like me, do you have your very own juicer and make fresh juice at home?

And since smoothies and juices are made from fruits and vegetables do you believe they are automatically HEALTHY?

Don’t believe the hype! While they can both be POTENTIALLY healthy, often times, based on total calories and sugar, they are worse than soda or even a milkshake. Let me explain.

SMOOTHIES

Most smoothies are made from many servings of fruit. More fruit than you would normally eat at one sitting.

A typical smoothie may contain the following:

A banana, pineapple, mango, and spinach. This could equate to a minimum of 300 calories and more than 50 grams of sugar.

What about a berry smoothie?

Again, usually there’s a banana, then a couple cups of berries which could make a smoothie that contains 300 or more calories, and 40 grams of sugar.

Of course, unlike soda or a milkshake, you have all the fiber and phytonutrients of the fruit (and vegetables if you have those in there.) The fiber will help slow down the absorption of the sugar, and the nutrition in all that fruit is great for your health. But, don’t be fooled!

I was just looking at the nutritional chart from Tropical Smoothie Cafe, and I found most of their smoothies contained more than 400, up to 700, calories, and 100 or more grams of sugar!! Even the smallest kid’s smoothie had 39 grams of sugar! That’s almost the same as a can of soda.

A Burger King 16 oz strawberry banana smoothie contains 310 calories and 60 grams of sugar, plus 2 grams of fiber, so I am guessing there’s no real fruit in here anyway.

In what world is this considered “Healthy?”

My rules for creating truly healthy and nutritious smoothies.

1. Only put as much fruit and vegetables in as you would eat in one serving. (No one eats 2 bananas, a mango, some pineapple, a cup of strawberries, and a cup of blueberries all at once, unless you’re a gorilla.)
2. Use one small or 1/2 of a full-sized banana. Or try subbing in avocado for creaminess.
3. When using banana as the base, stick with berries as additional fruit, and limit to 1 cup.
4. Avoid mixing multiple sweet fruits in one smoothie, like banana, pineapple, mango.
5. Add healthy fats and proteins to the smoothie. (nuts, seeds, MCT, collagen powder)
6. Add greens! Spinach barely changes the taste though can change the color, has virtually no calories, no sugar, and packs a wallop of nutrition..
7. Create non, or less-sweet smoothies using greens, avocado, lemon, and a little pineapple or apple. Who says smoothies have to be sweet?
8. When trying to keep it lower calorie, use water as the base.

What about JUICING?

With juicing you need to be even more careful because, unlike whizzing up a smoothie, juicing strips out the fiber. So when you juice a bunch of sweet fruits and vegetables, that sugar gets absorbed very quickly, similar to drinking a soda, sweet tea, or energy drink.

For example, if you juice 1 medium sweet apple, 4 medium carrots, and 1 cup of red beet, you would end up with a tasty and nutritious juice, but it would be around 250 calories and 42 grams of sugar. With virtually no fat, little protein, and no fiber to slow down all that sugar, you are going to spike your blood sugar and then crash just like if you started your day off with any other sweetened beverage.

Pre-packaged juices usually aren’t any better.

Per 15 oz bottle, the Blue Machine from Naked juice, which contains the juice of 3.3 apples, 27 blueberries, 1 banana, and 3 blackberries contains 320 calories, 0 fat, 3 gram fiber, and 55 grams of sugar. (Again, no one would eat all this fruit at one time.)

One small Orange Supreme at Jamba Juice contains 300 calories, 6 g fiber (a little better) and 39 g sugar, while the large contains 350 calories, 9 g fiber, and 56 g sugar.

Rules for creating truly healthy juice at home:

1. Start with low-sugar vegetables like greens, cucumber, and celery.
2. Add a small amount of sweet fruit and/or veg like carrot, pineapple, orange, apple, or beet.
3. Juice Granny Smith apple to save about 30 calories, and 7 g sugar compared to sweeter varieties.
4. Add the zing of lemon, lime, ginger, and/or turmeric for a punch of nutrition and flavor.
5. If your juice is on the sweeter side, drink it alongside something containing fiber, fat and protein. Avocado, eggs, nuts, seeds, meat.

You can enjoy both juices and smoothies on a healthy diet. You just need to know how to build them correctly so you get the most out of them, not spike your blood sugar, or derail your daily allotment of sugar and calories. Plus, you must be aware of clever marketing which tries to sell the consumer what often is nothing more than a glorified milkshake, or other sugar-sweetened beverage.

I realize, it is controversial to count fruit or vegetable sugars as part of the daily recommendation of 26 grams for women, and 36 grams for men. I tend to count “added sugars” as my 26 grams or less. But, I would say, when you are drinking your fruits and vegetables in this way, be very aware of just how much you are taking in. Just because it is a natural plant-based food doesn’t mean you can consume it in unlimited quantities. Especially when you are juicing, because this isn’t nearly as “natural” as eating the foods whole, or blending them up in whole form and simply liquifying them.

I hope you now feel armed with the knowledge to either make or buy truly healthy smoothies and juices, or perhaps now you will simply eat your plants in their whole form which takes most of the guess-work out!