Tropical Cafe Smoothie: Good or Bad for You?

Its the sugar content that makes a smoothie so bad.

These fruit smoothies have more fiber in them though compared to straight up juicing, so that has to help somewhat.

Dude, I just checked out Tropical Smoothie to look at their sugar content of their Totally Green Smoothie. It contains Cucumber, Green Apple, Kale, Spinach, Celery & Kiwi...sounds healthy right? 71 freaking grams of sugar. You're better off eating a Twinkie.

Ask for no sugar.

Did you mean to ask: "Is tropical cafe smoothies good for runners?"

Smoothie places in theory are great but to appeal to the masses they load tons of sugar and fruit in syrups instead of fresh or frozen. Its barely better than eating a burger.

Hey markschultze can I ask you something? Why do you post piece of absolute SHIT news topics all the time. Every single one of them gets deleted after like 15 minutes but it's still annoying as hell. Why do you keep doing it?

Smoothies always make me feel sick, not a fan.

Accra wrote:

Hey markschultze can I ask you something? Why do you post piece of absolute SHIT news topics all the time. Every single one of them gets deleted after like 15 minutes but it's still annoying as hell. Why do you keep doing it?

Hmm, its long past 15 minutes bro.

So, we're in the local Tropical Smoothie shop last Saturday evening. They're having a Family Fun night. Kids eat free when an adult purchases a meal. Walk in, dude dressed as a banana doing little games with the kids, cute. Another lady doing face paint, nice. My kid gets in line for a little face paint action and the wife gets in line to order. In walks a lady with five kids...and a flyer for the event. The lady tells the young clerk she wants to purchase a meal and wants free meals for the rest of her kids, per what the flyer states. Now, in her defense, I'll say that technically she was right, the flyer was poorly worded and it did say: Kids eat free with the purchase of an adult meal. But come on, did she really think the local smoothie shop was going to fork over five free meals for her chitlins? It was obvious to anyone with half a brain what was meant by the campaign. Well, when told she wasn't getting the meals she went on and on about being an English major and what the flyer really said and yada yada yada. Well the girl doing the face paint had to go and handle this lady, thus ending that fun for the time being (banana boy took over the face paining and tried his best, but was pretty lacking in artistic capability) and everyone in the place is now watching to see what transpires. The girl ends up calling the owner and works out a 1 for 1 deal on the meals, which everyone agreed to and it loked like there'd be fun in Family fun Night again. Well, the young lady says something to the woman about raising heck and the woman was off on a tirade again, I wasn't raising heck, your flyer is wrong, blah blah. Now people are telling the lady to leave and let the kids have a bit of fun. In the end the clerk told the woman she had to leave, which she did, to mild cheers. Like I stated earlier, maybe the woman was right, technically, but if she knew it was too good to be true, she should have called to verify what really was meant by the flyer and not try some blind-side tactics on a probably early college aged manager of a smoothie shop. In the end we had our (as I know now, overly-sugared) smoothies and delicious sandwiches, and my daughter went home with a balloon and a very sad face painting of a dog.

Their smoothies have too much sugar and too little fruit. However some of the sandwiches and salads aren't too bad health wise. Ask for dressing on the side for the salads. You can get a side of fruit instead of chips. Obviously they aren't all healthy. I like the atmosphere, so I stop there if I need fast food while on the road or to get something quick on my lunch break.

I know this is an old post, but just wanted to give some advice to other runners looking for a healthy option at Tropical Smoothie Cafe. I work at one, and I absolutely love the Island Green without any sugar. The Mango Magic, Jetty Punch, and Sunny Day are others that I like without sugar. I love running, but I'm not a professional. I like to add protein and oats or flaxseed to my smoothies for a boost after I go running.

We're not like Jamba Juice-we use real whole fruit in every smoothie. Trust me, I know because I get to prep hundreds of pounds of fruits and veggies every week.

There are a few concentrates for things like cranberry, goji, and acai, but you can ask your cashier for a smoothie recommendation without any fruit concentrates. The new prototype we're upgrading to will have an open kitchen, so you can see your food and smoothies being made-no sherbet or random things getting added to your smoothie, period.

We do use Turbinado sugar in the smoothies, but honestly, get any smoothie that has pineapple or strawberries and you don't usually need the sugar. Make sure you look at the nutritional guide under the sugars with splenda if you're leaving out the sugar. The full serving of Turbinado adds about 44 grams of sugar. I always ask to have mine made with no sugar. Then the grams of sugar you're getting are just fine, because it's what you'd get by eating the actual fruit.

As to whether they're healthy, I believe after drinking them for over a year and researching what really happens when you drink juice vs smoothies, they're healthy as a meal replacement because you're getting great nutrition (especially if you leave out added sugar), with healthy sugars and fiber. Juicing doesn't give you the fiber, so you get a big spike in blood sugar with your nutrients. I'm not big on sugar substitutes, they feel too unnatural to me, so I add pineapple to smoothies I know aren't too sweet.

My manager tries to get organic produce, but not everything is organic, and sometimes the vendors run out or don't have enough. Usually she gets strawberries, bananas, greens, and blueberries organic. Check with your local store, since every owner is different.

Hey There,

Thanks for the info on the Tropical Smoothie Cafe smoothies. By the way, the pomegranate and cranberry syrup that is in the Pomegranate Plunge, where can you purchase it at?

Regarding the Turbinado Sugar, what is that mixed in on the Pomegranate Plunge Smoothies? I watch when the ingredients are added and never see a sugar scoop being added.

good good good))

My Favourite Smoothie recipe - with Spinach, Strawberry and Bananas!)

Try!

https://greenann.com/recipe/strawberry-spinach-smoothie/

turbinado sugar sounds fancy, but its just regular sugar. Splenda is horrible for you. Unless you're drinking smoothies all the time (and thus going to get fat), I'd rather go with the high cal sugar option than splenda.