Smoothie Time

I make smoothies almost daily for breakfast for my boys. My parents gifted us with a Vitamix blender just last Christmas and since then I've been blending and mixing something up nearly every day. I love the flexibility of adding whatever frozen fruit I've got in my freezer and easily getting lots of healthy, real food in the kids. 

I seem to make a slightly different concoction every day with some more popular than others. No one was very happy when I added kale but small amounts of frozen spinach go unnoticed. I start with a liquid which lately has been coconut milk followed by an oil (flax or coconut). I'm always trying to keep us regular so I add a tablespoon or 2 of flaxmeal and then lots of frozen fruit- berries, bananas, peaches or mangoes and a bit of stevia to sweeten. Only occasionally do I add in the frozen veggies too since they change the flavor and the kids do notice.

I was very disturbed to read in a recent study by Produce For Better Health Foundation (PBH) that only 8 percent of Americans achieve their recommended servings for fruit and it's even worse for vegetables with just 6 percent of Americans meeting the recommended target. Smoothies are an easy and tasty way to get more fruits and veggies into your diet.

I recently joined the Moms Meet program and was given the opportunity to review two of the new Fruit & Veggie Smoothies at Jamba Juice. My family LOVES Jamba Juice and we have been consuming their smoothies for many years so my kids were thrilled when I told them about this. They were not so happy when I said they didn't get to choose their regular smoothie flavors but they eventually came around.

All Jamba Juice Fruit & Veggie Smoothies contain two servings of fruits and one serving of veggies in every blended to order smoothie. They are made from whole fruit and vegetable juice with no added sugar.

I ordered a Tropical Harvest Smoothie which contains mangoes, peaches and passion mango juice blended with juices from butternut squash, sweet potato, and carrot. It's dairy and gluten free and full of Vitamins A & C.

My youngest son Luke got a Jamba Kids Berry Beet It! Smoothie which is a blend of strawberries, mangoes, bananas and mixed berry juice with carrots, beets, broccoli, spinach, kale and lettuce. It's also free of dairy and gluten and full of vitamins A, C, B6 and fiber.

The kids and I loved the flavor of the Tropical Harvest Smoothie. It's an orange color with a strong mango flavor. I found it very sweet and delicious and the kids agreed.

Our opinions of the Jamba Kids Berry Beet It! Smoothie were more mixed. I only got one in the kids size for Luke but we all tried it. Luke & Braden liked it and said it had a sweet raspberry flavor. I liked it too but none of us preferred it over the Tropical Harvest flavor. Zane didn't like Berry Beet It at all. He is my most picky smoothie drinker and prefers very sweet smoothies. He said it tasted bitter to him. I didn't agree as I thought it was plenty sweet.

I find Jamba Juice smoothies to be a great treat for the kids when we're out and about. It's far better for them than an ice cream cone or donut. My only drawback is that the smoothies are very sweet but no sugar is added so I'm sure they must use a lot of juice or juice concentrates which are full of empty calories without the good things you get from a whole fruit or veggie. I'm certainly going to keep making smoothies at home but when I need a cool treat with the kids between all my mommy errands I'll be stopping at Jamba Juice.

I received this product for free from the sponsor of the Moms Meet program, May Media Group LLC, who received it directly from the manufacturer. As a Moms Meet blogger, I agreed to use this product and post my opinion on my blog. My opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of May Media Group LLC or Jamba Juice.