I’ve been drinking a good number of smoothies and while I make most of them at home, I have purchased smoothies at Whole Foods and Central Market. I haven’t yet purchased a smoothie from the chain places like Smoothie King.
I am visiting family this weekend and I still need to drink smoothies so I figured I would have to go to Smoothie King. Yesterday I met my family for breakfast and next door is a supermarket called “earthfare”. Since we had to wait for a table, I went inside Earthfare and wow, it’s just like whole foods. They have a smoothie area and I purchased a smoothie – just fruit. Under the menu board they have a big sign that reads, “WE DO NOT USE ICE IN OUR SMOOTHIES”. I didn’t really understand why they would call that out.
This morning I went to Smoothie King – first of all, their smoothies are more expensive than Whole Foods and Earthfare. They have a huge menu board of addons – I picked an all-fruit smoothie and went to the cashier. For some reasons I thought I should ask if they put ice in the smoothies – sure enough they do!
So I asked how much of the 20 oz small size is actual fruit – she said 10-12oz. So in a smoothie for $4.50 or more, half of the drink is ICE!!! For comparison, I paid $3.79 for 16oz with the same ingredients at Earthfare. So while the price is close, the amount of actual fruit is not. The plan is for me to drink 2 smoothies a day – while I haven’t asked her about the ice, I assume she wants 2 all-fruit smoothies not 2 watered-down smoothies.
Smoothie King should put down on their ingredients list on every smoothie on their menu, “ice” – by hiding it, I’d bet most people don’t realize that they put ice in the drinks or just how much ice they put in the drinks.
It’s amazing how much there is to learn when you are new to eating healthy. Today I learned about the “ice in smoothies” scam.
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