Good grief! I never realised that about smoothies! (The F Word, C4 now)

[MaureenMLove]

Janet S-P has just done a peice on smoothies. Did you know that there is more sugar in one portion of smoothie, than in a can of Tango? Also, if you drank one a day for a year, you would put on 13lbs!!

I don't buy them or make them as a rule, but I will think twice, when I do fancy a pick-me-up after a heavy night out!

It's not necessarily the speed but it is far easier to eat more fruit if you juice or blend it and not get as many benefits from it. If you use 5 pieces of fruits in a smoothie that actually only counts as 1 a day and to get your 5 a day you would still have to eat another 4 pieces of fruit on top. also i think they recommend you try to eat more vegetables than fruit to make up your 5 a day.

Ahhh where does the fibre go? How does it escape? Someone tell me how it gets out the blardy liquidizer - does it escape on mass when I turn around.

I have never seen fibre sneaking out the liquidizer and running across my kitchen.....

How on earth would it count as one fruit when there are five - sorry not buying into this. Come on please explain?

Sorry I am off this is just silly

Fruit is fruit and however you eat it it is fruit and good for you.

It doesn't go anywhere. It just helps break it down, so it is easier to digest and your body doesn't have to use up as much energy to get the goodness out of it.

Because if it is juiced or blended you can't get as many nutritional benefits from it. Eating an actual piece of fruit is better for you than drinking 5 pieces of fruit in a glass.

I'm with ivykaty. If it's juiced, sure the skin and a lot of the pulp and fibre get left behind. I have no problem with that.

I'd like to see some real science about what a blender does to the fibre to agree that smoothies have less nutritional benefit.

Sure there's an issue with a lot of calories fast so be careful to count it properly if you're on a diet. Sure there may be an issue with blood sugar spikes due to the speed of consuming which need to be watched out for.

However, I drink a smoothie a day (unfortunately, not a home made one - tropicana, so appreciate there's some deterioration of the nutrients) simply because I really don't like fruit and otherwise probably wouldn't eat any (I do eat a fair amount of veg though!). I can see no reason why a smoothie can't count for 2 portions rather than 1 (and considering how much fruit goes into it, that's probably a conservative approximation) and potentially more if I make it at home.

It's certainly going to be better for me than if I skip the fruit entirely and drink a can of Tango a day instead!!! what a ridiculous comparison.

as long as you were getting your 5 a day in vegetables which is preferable anyway it wouldn't matter if you skipped the fruit entirely. yes a smoothie is going to be better for you than a can of tango but i think the issue was not don't drink a smoothie have a tango instead, but more don't drink a smoothie have a piece of fruit/veg instead.

"Give fruit to eat and water to drink. Much better and cheaper. A frozen smoothy is a good dessert IMO, not something to be drunk on a regular basis."

For my ds1, smoothies are the ONLY way he will eat fruit. And before I get lectured about pandering to him, I have tried EVERYTHING with him. And now he is 7, I am simply trying to get him to enjoy food. And the fact that he will drink fruit smoothies is good. Because he gets tastes of all different fruits, goodness from them etc. He is skinny. A bit of fructose will not hurt him. I'd much rather he had a cheese sandwich and a smoothie for his packed lunch than a cheese sandwich and nothing/water which would be the alternative.

I quite agree tortoiseshell. Better than nothing.

tortoise - will he not eat veg sticks etc as a snack either?

natural fruit sugar is surely much better for you. And i drank much more than one a day for ages after dd was born and felt loads better for it - more energy etc... so i probably burned off any extra calories just because i was able to actually function a bit better.

and I just can't believe anything Janet S-P says as a matter of principle, probably because her voice cuts through me like a knife and i just automatically shut her out. Did anyone see when she was running around trying to 'tenderise' those veal calves

You can add raw spinach to fruit smoothies to increase their nutritional value. If I put it in a lidded plastic beaker, my kids don't even know that it's green, and spinach has a mild flavour that is masked by the fruit.

I think fruit is very over rated. Sure, it's better than junk food and refined sugar, but we should be concentrating on eating more vegetables than fruit.

This is the most bonkers thread ever

It WORRIES me that people have these strange ideas about food

Hmm, think I will still be giving DS1 a smoothie in his packed lunch and not a can of Tango.

Yes, Smoothies are full of sugar. My mum is a diabetic and can't drink them as too much sugar at once for her system. However Tango is completely devoid of anything nutritious.

I just knew that JSPs report would have this response. Okay eating fruit is a good message to provide.

But she did not make it clear that the weight gain is about consuming excess calories to what is required. Her message seemed to be if you have a smoothie every day you will put on this amount of weight.

Also comparing sugar and calorific content of smoothies with that of fizzy drinks is ridiculous unless you're going to do a comparision of nutritional value as well.

Reports like this really annoy me because I suspect lots of people will have taken the message from it that fizzy drinks are better than smoothies - how stupid is that.

nappyaddict, the ONLY fruit or veg ds1 has is peas, occasional grapes and fruit smoothies/orange/apple/grape juice. Oh and baked beans. That is it.

Not a good diet, but at least I can get a few more vitamins into him with smoothies.