smoothies??

ULgirl2010

hey so i didnt have time to nip home for lunch today as planned, so i tried to find the healthiest option i could think of, i opted for a smoothie which contained berrys, apple juice and frozen youghurt and im just wondering how bad/good would it be?

i know the frozen youghurt and possibly the apple juice (depending on which type) could be wuite bad, sugar and fat content wise, but im just wondering as a whole lunch would it still be pretty low cal? as im currently trying to lose a few pounds

EileenG

Not a low cal lunch. Sorry, I know they are nice and are fine as an occasional treat. But they are very high in sugar, usually much lower in fiber than you'd think, and with very little protein or fat.

If you were pushed, I'd buy a bag of washed salad and a tin of fish, and have that for lunch. Or even a pot of cottage cheese and a bag of nuts or seeds. Or the classic chicken salad.

Even a carvary in a pub could work. Go for whatever meat has been roasted rather than fried, and have lots of vegetables instead of the chips.

ULgirl2010

thanks for the reply... it was really juat a once off today, was hoping for a different answer but looks like i undid my hard work in the gym earlier

metamorphosis

from SU spar?

i work there - ingredients for the frozen yogurt is 75% prebiotic yogurt, the remaining quater is pretty much variations of sugar

CatFromHue

hmmm dont mean to hijack this thread but i wonder what you think of my smoothies/juices which usually contain

frozen, but sometimes fresh blueberries / raspberry / forrest fruits, half a banana, some orange juice (usually tropicana so not from concentrate) and 2 tablespoons of low fat probiotic natural organic yoghurt.

other than the yoghurt the quantities of fruit and juice are such that it makes a pint but is thick but still is liquidy

The fruit contains sugar which is all naturally occuring, so the sugar in the yoghurt (8% of recommended daily intake per 100g) is the only bad thing i can see about it.

anyone have any opinions on its healthyness?

EileenG

Basically, you have a fruit salad with yogurt. Nothing wrong with that, but you need to be aware of amounts and portion sizes, and decide if this is a dessert, snack, or meal replacement.

As a meal, it's very low in protein and fat. As a dessert, it's fine.

Actually, of the ingredients you have in there, the one I would find fault with is the orange juice. Commercial orange juice is nutritionally almost the same as Club Orange. It's a high sugar drink with very little nutrition. Having fruit sugar rather than table sugar doesn't make a lot of difference. Eat whole oranges instead.

C_Dawg

Don't mean to hijack the thread here.

You know the type of smoothies you can get in the Juice Master stores, are they healthy enough? Just curious really. I'm not planning on making a diet around them or anything. Thanks

EileenG

They are not bad, just not as good as people think. Fruit juice is nowehere near as healthy as fruit, and smoothies are full of them, Smoothies tend to be higher cal and higher sugar than people realise.

C_Dawg

Cheers EileenG

dudara

The problem with smoothies (or any kind of fruit juice) is that the fruit has been pulverised, which means that the cells and structure have been broken up, releasing the sugars. This means that you body absorbs the sugar much faster than if you ate the fruit separately.

Plus, a smoothie can contain a lot of fruit - the puree fruit takes up less volume than the individual items. For instance, I bought a carton of Innocent today (1 litre). A quick glance at the back says that it contains 34 strawberries, 2 oranges, 6 apples, 2 1/2 bananas and 19 grapes (plus other ingredients). That's a lot of fruit.

Roanmore

I remember on Gordon Ramsay's show about 2 years ago Janet Street Porter did a piece but it was one of the worst pieces of journalism I have ever seen. She tore smoothies to shreds but did it on the basis of people taking smoothies WITH their normal meals INSTEAD of meals. She basically said if people drink smoothies they would gain x pounds per week becaue their calorie intake would go through the roof. I'm not pro or anti smoothies but I thought the piece was terrible, you could say that about most healthy foods.

EileenG

She does have a point. Unless you are very aware of calories, the chances are you will have the smoothie as well as normal food, not instead of. I've seen people having it as a drink with a meal, the way you'd drink a glass of water.

If you know it's a meals worth of calories and treat it accordingly, it's not a disaster.

sillysasauge

Roanmore wrote: »

I remember on Gordon Ramsay's show about 2 years ago Janet Street Porter did a piece but it was one of the worst pieces of journalism I have ever seen. She tore smoothies to shreds but did it on the basis of people taking smoothies WITH their normal meals INSTEAD of meals. She basically said if people drink smoothies they would gain x pounds per week becaue their calorie intake would go through the roof. I'm not pro or anti smoothies but I thought the piece was terrible, you could say that about most healthy foods.

I remember that and thinking it was a load of bollox, I think I remember her implying that a smoothie was no healthier for you than a can of coke because the calories are similar, not mentioning the fact that smoothies have a load of vitamins and minerals, which i thought could be very misleading for some people.
I sometimes have a smoothie for breakfast in the morning for a change but add natural yoghurt and 3/4 few tablespoons of oats for the complex carbs.

Cherrycola

This guy has a huge amount of info on fresh juices, and he was not happy with that Janet Street Porter piece either.

http://www.juicemaster.com/

The way to go is to have a mix of veg and fruit juice instead of just fruit smoothies.
All juices and smoothies from any of the Juicemaster bars are all natural, no high sugar frozen yogurt etc is used.
Ive read a few of his books, and i have a juicer and regularly make my own fresh juice, with everything from cucumber, celery, apple, spinach, carrot, lemon, ginger, etc etc, and they are fab for giving you energy.

EileenG

I'd take some of what he says with a pinch of salt. He insists that cockroaches won't eat white bread. So some students at the BT Young Scientists Exhibition tried to prove it. Turns out cockroaches LOVE white bread. Ideally spread with chocolate. It's raw apples they won't eat.

dudara

a friend had one of his books, so I borrowed it. I nearly threw it out the window. His hyperbole is really annoying.

Nothing wrong with fruit juices and smoothies - just imbibe in moderation (like everything else)

And of course juices will give you energy - you've released all the sugar in the fruit by liquidising it.

Cherrycola

Id sooner have a fresh fruit and veg juice than a Slim fast/LighterLife/Promax "insert other powdered "health" shake here"

But thats just me.