Is Your Green Smoothie Making You Fat?

Spinach and kale ARE superfoods. They are choc full of vitamins, minerals, and essential amino acids. But smoothies are a concentrated sugar surge!

In order to run optimally, a body needs approximately equal caloric intakes of  high quality protein, healthy fats, and unrefined complex carbohydrates. When we eat these macronutrients in correct ratios, our blood sugars remain in an optimal zone of 70-90 mmol/L.

But when carbohydrates are dominant, especially simple carbs and sugars, blood sugars readily spin past 100 mmol/L - even up to 200 in extreme cases, and insulin must flood the bloodstream to stash the excess glucose in the liver, the muscles  - as fat stores. Only so much energy can be burned at any given moment; the rest must be saved. They body's energy "bank" is its fat tissues.

Because insulin's function is to move sugars out of the blood, it has to prohibit fat stores from being mobilized. To use fat for energy would be to release the glucose that insulin is trying to stow. Therefore, any food or drink that creates an insulin spike is going to cause weight gain.

Fiber is a moderating element that slows the entry of glucose into the bloodstream. But the labels of the top 3 commercial smoothie brands indicate they have 1 gram of fiber or less. Insignificant! How do these brands rate in providing equal ratios of protein, fat and carbohydrate?

Brand	% Calories from Protein	% Calories from Fat	% Calories from Carb
Odwalla	2	0	98
Bolthouse	6	0	94
Naked	6	0	94

Smoking Shish-kabobs! You might as well just take a multi-vitamin with a handful of candy. But suppose you buy the "Protein Plus" or "Protein Zone" label? The scores  still flunk! 

Brand	% Calories from Protein	% Calories from Fat	% Calories from Carb
Odwalla	31	17	51
Bolthouse	32	2	66
Naked	29	9	63

If you're going to drink them, perhaps you can balance the sugar rush by eating eggs with them.