Customer Reviews

Healthy Exchanges Sensational Smoothies

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When you use Diet Mountain Dew in a majority of the recipes, and plenty of them sprinkled with Splenda? Sugar free Maple Syrup?

There are so many natural, healthy ingredients to use for smoothie and if you want sweetness so many fruit to add into your blender, why do you need to throw these junk in!! There aren't many other ways to make your smoothie any more unhealthy and nutritionally depleted! Please, do yourself a flavor, do your blender justice, get another cookbook that improves your health!

This book is full of healthy smoothies. If you stick to the recommended serving size ("Small" in a Smoothie bar setting), they're only about 100-120 calories each. I generally drink a "double", but that still keeps them all under 250 calories. Once you've tried a dozen or so, you get the feel of ingredients and quantities on your own.

A previous reviewer didn't like the idea of Splenda being added to some recipes, or the occasional use of Diet Mountain Dew. Splenda is an artificial sweetener derived from sugar and has passed every test for safety in every country it has been introduced. As for Diet Mountain Dew, it has no caffeine west of the Mississippi River where this author lives. East of the Mississippi, I would substitute a Diet Sprite or Fresca-type soda. Generally, the amount of this soda is 2 to 4 ounces, so I don't see there's anything to be squeamish about anyway.

I have several smoothie books and find a far greater satisfaction rate with these recipes than any other.

I don't even know where to begin to describe how this book is wrong in so many ways. I'll start by saying that the word 'smoothie' would indicate health and freshness. The cover of this book is covered with fresh fruits. When you open the book to the recipes here's what ingredients you will find:

-Diet Mountain Dew
-Diet Coke
-Splenda Granular
-Hershey's Lite Chocolate syrup
-Green food coloring (for the limeade smoothie)
-Cool-Whip Lite
-Various flavored extracts
-Carnation Evaporated Fat Free Milk
-Log Cabin Sugar Free Maple Syrup
-The only fresh fruit are bananas and mangos. All other recommended fruits are frozen which is the closest to fresh as this book can get
-Minute Rice
-JELL-O gelatin
-Kraft fat free cheese

When I think healthy I DO NOT think of these ingredients especially from a cookbook that claims to be healthy. This is also supposed to be an exchange book for diabetics. I'm not a diabetic but if I were I still would not eat this crap.

There aren't just a few recipes that require the Splenda and Mt. Dew. It's MOST of them. I love how Spanish Rice Supreme recipe in the back of the book requires a tbs. of Splenda. Yeah. When I think Spanish rice I totally think Splenda.

Product placement-I'm convinced that the author got paid by product companies to list their foods. Instead of the recipe asking for half and half or just fat-free yogurt the author pimps name brands like Dannon, Kraft, Land-o-Lakes, JELL-O, Well's Blue-Bunny, etc. Ugh!

The final thing that is so wrong about this book is the glam shot of the author on the back. Seriously?! This woman looks like she never made any of these smoothies because her big-ass pearl earrings would drop in her blender. It's quite amusing and unrealistic.

There are so many great smoothie recipe books on the market that include actual healthy ingredients. Diabetic or not putting highly caffeinated soda cannot be beneficial in anyway. Juicing is also very popular. Juicing would give your body the nutrients your body needs that diet soda cannot. It's general principle that soda and Splenda should not go into a smoothie. #@%#$*& nasty!