Smoothies: Are they better than soda?

Smoothies are all the rage right now, with hot summers upon us, I am hearing commercials for smoothies all the time! Beware if you think you are getting a ‘healthy’ treat and opting for a smoothie instead of a soda. Here are the details on one big chain that starts with a ‘M’.
The ‘strawberry banana smoothie’ contains:
44 sugars = 11 tsp in a 12 oz cup(that is as much as a can of soda-GASP!) and all other ‘smoothies’ are essentially the same.
Here are the ingredients....
Strawberry Banana Fruit Base
Strawberry Puree, Banana Puree, Water, Grape Juice Concentrate, Clarified Demineralized Pineapple Juice Concentrate, Sugar, Contains Less Than 1%: Natural (Plant Source) and Artificial Flavors, Cellulose Powder, Pear Juice Concentrate, Peach Juice Concentrate, Xanthan Gum, Citric Acid, Pectin, Colored with Fruit and Vegetable Juice, Ascorbic Acid (Preservative).

LOWFAT SMOOTHIE YOGURT
Allergens: MILK
Cultured Grade A Reduced Fat Milk, Sugar, Whey Protein Concentrate, Fructose, Corn Starch, Modified Food Starch, Gelatin. Contains Active Yogurt Cultures.
Ice

So you are getting a lot of sugar, low fat dead milk with fillers to ‘thicken’ it and over 23 ingredients....Yes some of the sugar is from fruit-but do you really know how much?  Well a cup of fresh berries you are getting about 3 tsp of sugar and in one banana about 3 tsp of sugar, plus in the whole food form you get the added benefit of it being REAL with vitamins, minerals and fiber:o)

Here is a simple strawberry banana smoothie recipe that has less than 5 ingredients

Ingredients:
1 cup (more or less to taste) Frozen organic(or even better cultured) berries
1- frozen banana
1/2-1 cup- real yogurt(or even better kefir)
1/2 cup Raw whole milk(or more yogurt, kefir)
2 TBSP or so Real maple syrup(grade B)

Directions:
Put all in a blender and blend until smooth!

See that wasn’t hard, was it?

Eat REAL FOOD!