Friday, December 29, 2006

Jamba Juice - More Calories than a Footlong Meatball Sub!

It's possible that fruit and vegetables are the easiest products in the world to market as healthy.

Everyone and his mother, this blog included, touts the health benefits of fruit and vegetable consumption.

That said, there's a world of difference between eating fruit and drinking it, and part of that world is calories.

Jamba Juice, a rapidly growing fruit smoothie franchise is a case in point.

On their website, they blindly stick to the low fat message and extol the virtue of carbohydrates,

"You can see that fat on a weight basis yields more than twice the energy per gram compared to carbohydrates and proteins. But since the body uses carbohydrates for energy, and carbohydrate foods also provide other nutrients, you should try to meet your energy needs with carbohydrates rather than fats."
So how much energy are we talking about at Jamba Juice?

Insane amounts!

If you were to drink their "Power" version of virtually any of their products, you're drinking more calories than a Big Mac.

If you were to choose unwisely (with unwise here not really referring to calories, but rather to a choice that you felt was a healthy one because it was Jamba Juice after all), and had their Power Peanut Butter Moo'd, which as described by the Jamba Juice website is,
"Made with all-natural peanut butter, this super-smoothie is chock full of good stuff and tastes great too."
and then you looked at the ingredients,
"nonfat frozen yogurt, chocolate moo’d base, soymilk, ice, frozen bananas, all-natural peanut butter"
and thought, gee, that seems healthy, I'll have that, wanna know what you'd be having?

1170 Calories! The equivalent of 2 Big Macs, a foot long meatball marinara sub, a 1.5lb T-Bone steak or almost a full cup of peanut butter.

Yummy?

So why did I go off on this Jamba Juice rant? Well for Funny Friday of course.

Here's Natalie Portman in one of the best skits I've seen on SNL in years, making fun of the added health benefits of the "boosts" of Jamba Juice.

Have a great weekend and happy New Year!