Planet Smoothie Blogger Event

A few weeks ago I (and other local bloggers) was asked to come to Planet Smoothie for a "smoothie tasting." Now not only was this my first official blogger event, it was also my first smoothie tasting. I really had no idea what to expect.

Planet Smoothie is a national (franchised) chain with locations all across the country. The Pittsburgh Planet Smoothie is located on the first floor of X Shadyside, a local upscale gym. John - the owner of X Shadyside - decided to open a Planet Smoothie based on their healthy offerings and ability to work with his servies offered at the gym. John is a super nice guy, as is his wife Dana, they are both clearly passionate about the products that Planet Smoothie offers.

On to the tasting (yay!). We had 6 smoothies to taste, a really nice variety of what they had to offer.

The first smoothie that we got to sample was the Acai. Acai is a berry, similar to a blueberry in it's antioxidant capabilities, and has been uber popular in the health world in the last few years.

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The Acai smoothie is vegan and has acai, apple, strawberries, and blueberries. Overall, I thought it was a tasty smoothie, but acai has never really been my thing. I wish it had a bit more of a crisp apple taste, but as with anything you add banana to, you couldn't taste too much else.

The Last Mango

The Last Mango was next on our list. I really enjoyed this smoothie, also vegan, because of its refreshing tropical fruit flavors. This smoothie is made up of mangoes, peaches, bananas, and orange sherbert. The orange sherbert was a nice touch, it added a good consistency to the smoothie and ended up making it tasting like a creamsicle.

The Frozen Goat

The frozen goat was by far my favorite smoothie that I tried. I could seriously drink this everyday. It is touted as an energy smoothie and actually has coffee in it. It was similar to a frappuccino in taste and texture, but with less sugar and calories. It contains, coffee, bananas, cocoa, nonfat milk, yogurt, and their energy blast (more on the blasts later).

Comparison (both made with nonfat milk):

Planet Smoothie Frozen Goat (22 oz): calories: 220, fat: 0g, sugars: 16g

Starbucks Frappuccino (24 oz): calories: 290, fat: 0g, sugars: 66g

**Nutritional information from Starbucks and Planet Smoothie.

The Chocolate Elvis I honestly thought this smoothie would be my favorite, and it was good, but just not as chocolatey as I had hoped for (I think I built it up a little too much in my head). The Chocolate Elvis contains: banana, peanut butter, cocoa, yogurt, and nonfat milk. I thought it had a subtle peanut butter flavor, which was really nice.

The Leapin' Lizard

As you can tell by the picture, the smoothie didn't last long. This was one of their "weight loss" smoothies, so I was extra excited to give it a try. Made with peaches and strawberries, plus an added fat burner blast, the smoothie was refreshing and tasty, plus the lack of banana let another fruit have center stage for once.

The Planet Pro

The Planet Pro was our final taster, and to be honest, I couldn't finish it. It was WAY too sweet. I may be the wrong person to judge this as I don't like really sweet things, but it was like drinking pure sugar. I'm not sure if too much sweetener was added or if it's naturally that sweet, but woah. I'm not sure what fruits are in this smoothie, as you get to choose your own, but it also has a full meal replacement packet in it. Meal replacements aren't really my thing, I truly believe that a balanced diet is all you need to get your essential vitamins and minerals, and that isn't something you can really get from a supplement.

There are a few elements to the Planet Smoothie smoothies besides just what is on ingredients list. All smoothies have a sweetener added to them, a proprietary blend called LeanLeaf comprised of both agave and stevia. While both of these are natural sweeteners, their natural sugars can be a bit overpowering.

I have used agave in my baking and I'm not really a huge fan, I think it's too sweet. In my opinion every one of the smoothies I tried could have done without the added sweetener, the fruit alone is enough for me. So I asked the question:

"Can you get the smoothies without the sweetener?" Turns out, YOU CAN! Planet Smoothie is completely customizable, so if you don't like something you can opt out. It's also nice that the fruit is unsweetened, it's just regular frozen fruit. YES!

The second element to the smoothies are the "blasts," pondered supplements added to the smoothies to boost your body. The offered "blasts" are:

-Immunity

-Multi-Vitamin

-Fiber

-Energy

-Fat Burner

-Workout

-Protien

If you want to know more about each individual supplement, check out the site here. What I thought was interesting is that some of the "blasts" were not okay for kids and pregnant women, so if you are planning to add one, check with the person behind the counter to make sure it is safe to consume.

Typically I stray away from smoothies that I don't make myself because of all the hidden calories. They are one of those foods that seem healthy but are mostly not (like Chipotle, lesson learned). At Planet Smoothie they have 15 smoothies with less than 300 calories (in a 22oz size). I don't think that's half bad considering that most places are twice that. It really makes you wonder what the competition is putting in theirs.

What I really liked about Planet Smoothie is their use of real ingredients and their ability to customize a smoothie. It's definitely a place that if I find myself in Shadyside I would definitely stop at and grab myself a smoothie, namely The Frozen Goat! They are super nice people, and were very good to us bloggers. They not only gave us coupons and t-shirts:

Make a fool of myself? Never.

They also had a two Twitter contests, one to win a free month membership, the other, a smoothie party for 10 people. I never win anything, but guess who won the smoothie party:

THIS GIRL!

Yep, 10 smoothies of my choosing, I guess that means I should share...

Oh, and on the way out they asked us if we wanted a sample of their frozen yogurt. Uh, yes please.

Look how hip this place is!

Cable Car Chocolate: Fat Free, 110 calories (not sure of the size). IT WAS AMAZING!! (and I don't do fat free ice cream)

So many mix in's, so little time.

The verdict: I will definitely be back, I think it was the chocolate frozen yogurt that threw me over the top, one of the best non-fat "ice cream's" I have ever had. Oh, and of course, The Frozen Goat!!

Thanks again to John, Dana, and everyone at Giant Ideas for organizing this event!!

I might also add that this smoothie tasting inspired me to start making more of the own smoothies. I bring you:

The Vietnamese Peach

-frozen peaches

-1 cup vanilla almond milk

-pinch of cinnamon

Yes, I absolutely had a drink umbrella just lying around. I'm awesome like that.

I've never added cinnamon to a smoothie before, let me tell you, it was really good!

Now it's your turn, do you have any favorite smoothie recipes you'd like to share? Feel free to add a link in the comment section, I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!