It’s amazing how many variations of a smoothie are available in the market today.  At one point, the only way to get one was to simply add fruit in a blender and mix until it was… you guessed it… smooth.  Now, there are much simpler options than ever to get your hands on a nutritious all-fruit beverage. Many franchises, practically on every city block, now offer smoothie-like products to their customers.  But what exactly is in the smoothies you’re drinking?   If you really looked into what you’re getting, you might be surprised. On the menu, it simply says "Mango- Banana Smoothie.”  However, if you look a little closer at the pre-packaged fruit smoothie mix ingredients, you’re likely to find loads of artificial sweeteners, additives, and probably more than a little apple or pear juice in the mix as well. Now these things may not seem dangerous or be necessarily unhealthy, but they’re definitely not what you wanted. What you were looking for was a pure fruit-based product made from an all natural fruit smoothie mix that contains no added sugar, no artificial additives, and no preservatives.

What You See Is What You Get

Most countries require food manufacturers to list their ingredients on the label. The list should be short, and you should be able to pronounce or at least recognize all the ingredients on it.  Sometimes health drink manufacturers will add all-natural supplements in the fruit smoothie mix to augment the benefits you’ll already be getting through the fruit itself, and these are often totally fine, but the list of those additives should still be very short. Also, countries that require ingredient labels almost always require that those ingredients be listed in order of the most prominent to the least. If the number one ingredient isn’t the fruit that’s pictured on the label, you should rethink your purchase., because this means there is a good chance that your "Mango Smoothie” doesn’t contain mostly mango.