This picture of a healthy smoothie angers me. It makes me furious with rage and I fear for society. Just look at this smoothie. I did not make it. I did not drink it. It was made by theveganchemist and this is not going to be a critical post, merely a deconstruction on what is truly ‘healthy’.
This smoothie contains:
- Frozen bananas
- Cacao
- Spinach
- Almond milk
- Dark chocolate chips
It looks pretty good, don’t you think?
The vegan chemist is actually a seriously good blogger, I urge you to check out Cristina’s great blog, particularly if you are a health nut. I used to be a vegan health nut – in fact, I used to eat a very strict vegan diet, check out this post for a breakdown of what a super healthy vegan eats (FYI, yes the calories are low).
Now, I do not eat healthy food anymore, and I have never been happier. I recently wrote an article about a professor who ate an all junk food diet and lost weight. Yes, he was a scientist and nutrition teacher. The point is – I truly believe that you can eat whatever you want – but you must watch your portions.
Let’s compare the Vegan Chemist’s smoothie above, calorie by calorie, gram of fat by gram of fat, portion of salt to portion of salt – you get my drift – to a Hungry Jack’s chocolate thick shake.
Hungry Jack’s Medium Chocolate Shake:
- 305 grams of total weight
- 431 calories or 1807 kilojoules
- 12.7 grams of protein
- 11 grams of fat
- 7.5 grams of saturated fat
- 69.4 grams of sugar
- 314 milligrams of sodium
How does the ‘healthy’ smoothie compare?
So – when I added up the calories from the vegan chemist’s smoothie – I got this:
- 305 total calories – 32% from fat, 9% from protein and 58% from carbs.
Well, that surprised me!
It seems that the veganchemist’s smoothie did check out. But be aware – a 300 calorie smoothie is still a 300 calorie smoothie. It is not the sort of thing you want to be eating on top of your regular meals – this has to be instead of a meal.
Well done vegan chemist – you got me!