How Do You Reduce The Sugar In Smoothies?

How do you reduce the sugar in smoothies? Smoothies! We all love smoothies right, but we also know that smoothies can end up being high in sugar. Sad face. So how can we enjoy a delicious smoothie without going crazy in the sugar department?

Well, if you are making a smoothie at home then you must check out the post, I wrote on 25 sugar-free ingredients you can add to a smoothie which you can read here – 25 Sugar-Free Ingredients You Can Add To Your Smoothie. But what if you are ordering a smoothie in a smoothie shop? How do you reduce the sugar content of a smoothie ordered in a smoothie shop? Well, I am well placed to help you as I have written numerous posts on the lower sugar smoothies at various smoothie and juice chains (including Jamba Juice, Smoothie King, and Pressed Juicery).

In this post, I am looking at all these articles I have written about finding the lowest sugar drinks at smoothie shops and drawing some general hard and fast rules on how to reduce sugar when ordering.

So, let’s dig in – how do you reduce the sugar in smoothies?

How To Reduce Sugar in Smoothies

As a general rule, to reduce the sugar in a smoothie:

1. Order a small size!

2. Order a coffee, nut, banana and/or chocolate-based smoothie.

3. Order a smoothie labeled as “protein”, “low calorie”, “superfood”, “plant-based”, “keto”, “detox” or “lean”!

JAMBA JUICE

How To Reduce the Sugar of A Smoothie at Jamba Juice

I have researched and written a post on the 11 lowest sugar smoothies at Jamba Juice, which you can read here – The 11 Lowest Sugar Smoothies at Jamba Juice.

In this post, I established that there are 27g-44g of total sugar in the 11 lowest sugar smoothies from Jamba Juice. I also showed that 7 of the drinks in this list were from Jamba Juice’s Plant-Based range and 4 are from its Super Blends range. This implies that when ordering smoothies out and about opt for one that is plant-based or labeled as a super food smoothie.

Rules on how to order lower-sugar drinks at Jamba Juice

Here are the other general rules I learned about ordering a lower-sugar smoothie at Jamba Juice:

1. Order a small size

2. As a general rule, plant-based smoothies tend to be the lowest sugar smoothie followed by

the super bends range.

3. The classic smoothie range tends to contain the most sugar so avoid these.

4. A small Vanilla Blue Sky contains the least sugar (27g of sugar) followed by a small PB + Banana

Protein (Soy) smoothie which contains 30g of sugar.

The Lowest Sugar Drink at Jamba Juice

The lowest sugar drink at Jamba Juice is the Vanilla Blue Sky. Jamba Juice’s Vanilla Blue Sky is made from unsweetened almond milk, vanilla coconut milk, banana, pineapple, and blue spirulina boost. When you consider the fact that the second lowest sugar smoothie is PB + Banana this indicates that ordering a nut and banana-based smoothie is often the lowest sugar option.

SMOOTHIE KING

How To Reduce The Sugar Of A Smoothie at Smoothie King

The smoothies at Smoothie King can clock in a lot of sugar. For example, there are 200g of total sugar, 130g of which is added, in a 40oz Hulk Vanilla smoothie.

Fear not though, there are actually a number of added sugar-free smoothies at Smoothie King, and I have researched and written a whole piece on the lowest sugar smoothies at Smoothie King. You can read the whole post here – Lowest Sugar Smoothies at Smoothie King.

What are the Lowest Sugar smoothies at Smoothie King?

The lowest sugar smoothies at Smoothie King range from 1g to 20g of sugar. The Smoothie King smoothies with the least sugar are:

• Gladiator smoothies
• Keto Champ smoothies
• Lean1 Strawberry, Chocolate & Vanilla smoothies
• Shredder Vanilla and Chocolate smoothies
• Activator Recovery Coffee and Chocolate
• Slim-N-Trim Vanilla and Strawberry, and
• High Intensity Workout Chocolate Cinnamon

Rules for Ordering Lower Sugar Drinks at Smoothie King

As you can see from the above the lowest sugar smoothies at Smoothie King tend to be coffee, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry-flavored smoothies (with some exceptions from the Hulk range). In comparison, the Pure Recharge Pineapple and Pure Recharge Mango Strawberry both have no added sugar but they both contain 63g of naturally occurring sugar in a small cup.

Another trend that emerged is that the “Manage Weight” smoothies at Smoothie King tend to be lowest in sugar and the “Hulk” and “Enjoy a Treat” ranges tend to be highest in sugar. So, the name of the range will tend to give a good indication as to whether it will be higher or lower in sugar.

TROPICAL SMOOTHIE CAFE

How To Reduce The Sugar Of A Smoothie at Tropical Smoothie Cafe

I have also written a post on the lowest sugar smoothies at Tropical Smoothie Cafe, which you can read here – Lowest Sugar Smoothies at Tropical Smoothie Cafe.

Added Sugar at Tropical Smoothie Cafe

The most important thing to understand when ordering a smoothie at Tropical Smoothie Cafe is that Tropical Smoothie Cafe adds turbinado sugar to most of their smoothies.

Turbinado sugar is an all-natural sugar that isn’t processed.

You can, however, ask for the Turbinado sugar to be replaced with Splenda. This can reduce the sugar content drastically. For example, asking for a Lean Machine smoothie to be made with Splenda rather than Turbinado sugar reduces the sugar content from 107g to 26g of sugar.

What are the Lowest Sugar Smoothies at Tropical Smoothie Cafe

The lowest sugar smoothies at Tropical Smoothie Cafe vary from 21g to 38g of sugar. Most of these smoothies require you to order them made with Splenda instead of Turbinado sugar.

The lowest sugar smoothie at Tropical Smoothie Cafe, ordered “as-is” is the Detox Island Green which.

contains 29g of sugar. This is the only naturally sweetened smoothie on the Tropical Smoothie Cafe

 menu.

The smoothie at Tropical Smoothie Cafe which is the lowest sugar if ordered with Splenda is the

Blueberry Bliss smoothie, which contains 21g of sugar if ordered with Splenda.

Again, a word like “Detox” in the name will often imply it will be a lower-sugar smoothie.

PRESSED JUICERY

How To Reduce The Sugar Of A Smoothie at Pressed Juicery

I also wrote an article on the lowest sugar Pressed Juicery Juices and Smoothies, which you can read here – The 11 Lowest Sugar Pressed Juicery Juices, Smoothies, and Drinks.

Most of the drinks on this list are juices but there are two smoothies that make an appearance. One is their Tropical Protein Smoothie which contains 10g of total sugar. I am not surprised this drink is lower in sugar. It is often the case that protein smoothies are lower in sugar.

The other low-sugar Pressed Juicery Smoothie is their Coffee Protein Smoothie which contains 5g of total sugar. This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest – a banana and coffee protein smoothie is almost always going to be a lower-sugar smoothie.

PLANET SMOOTHIE

How To Reduce The Sugar Of A Smoothie at Planet Smoothie

I also wrote an article on the 12 lowest sugar Planet Smoothie Smoothies. A general rule, I established whilst writing this post is that the Plant Smoothie smoothies that contain cocoa, nut butters, bananas, frozen yogurt, and/or non-fat milk are often the lower sugar ones at Planet Smoothie.

You can read the full article here – 12 Lowest Sugar Planet Smoothie Smoothies.

What is the Lowest Sugar Smoothie at Planet Smoothie?

The lowest-sugar adult-sized smoothie at Planet Smoothie is a 20oz cup of PB Blues. PB Blues is made of peanut butter, blueberries, bananas, and whey meal replacement protein. There are 15g of sugar in a 20oz cup – 0g of which is added sugar. Again, the fact that the lowest sugar smoothie at Plant Smoothie contains peanut butter, banana, and protein doesn’t surprise me at all!

The second lowest sugar smoothie at Plant Smoothie is their Chocolate Gain smoothie which contains 17g of total sugar and 0g of added in a 20oz cup. Again, the trend of banana, chocolate, and protein-based smoothies being lower in sugar continues!

CLEAN JUICE

How To Reduce The Sugar Of A Smoothie at Clean Juice

I also wrote a post on the lowest-sugar smoothies and juices at Clean Juice. Three smoothies made it into the list, and they are:

• The Intense One Hemp Protein Smoothie (16oz) – 18g of Sugar
• The Intense One Whey Protein Smoothie (16oz) – 19g of Sugar
• The Coffee One Smoothie (16oz) – 19g of Sugar

If you have made it this far in the article, then I am sure that you aren’t surprised to see the words “protein” and “coffee” above!

It is also worth noting that the Coffee One Smoothie also contains almond milk and banana. Again, nut and banana-based smoothies are usually lower-sugar smoothies.

You can read my full article on the lowest sugar drinks at Clean Juice here: The Lowest Sugar Juices, Smoothies, and Food at Clean Juice.

ROBEKS

How To Reduce The Sugar Of A Smoothie at Robeks

The final smoothie chain we are going to look at in this post is Robeks. You can read the full article I wrote on Robeks here – 11 Lowest Sugar Smoothies and Juices at Robeks.

As a general rule all the “low-calorie smoothies” at Robeks are lower-sugar options. These Robek smoothies contain between 18g-24g of sugar in a small serving. For example, here are the total sugar contents of a small cup of the following Low Calorie Robeks Smoothies:

• Small Active Apple Low Calorie Smoothie – 18g of Sugar
• Small Berry Reboot Low Calorie Smoothie – 22g of Sugar
• Small Lean Green Low Calorie Smoothie -24g of Sugar

The following Robeks smoothies also made it onto my list of lower-sugar Robeks smoothies:

• Small Berry Beneficial – 28g of Sugar
• Small Strawnana Berry – 28g of Sugar

What do both smoothies have in common? They both contain bananas. As we have established banana-based smoothies are usually lower in sugar.

F&Q

Is There A Lot Of Sugar In Smoothies?

Smoothies can be high in sugar. There can be as much as 200g of total sugar in the largest size of a high-sugar smoothie.

Do Smoothies Have More Sugar Than Soda?

Smoothies can have more sugar than soda.

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How Do You Reduce The Sugar In Smoothies? – The Final Bite

How do you reduce the sugar in smoothies? What have we learned from the above? Well, the following conclusions can be drawn from the above for ordering a low-sugar smoothie out and about:

1. The first tip is super obvious but still worth stating – order the smallest size!
2. Order a coffee, nut, banana, and/or chocolate-based smoothie.
3. Avoid tropical smoothies.
4. Order a smoothie labeled as “protein”, “low calorie”, “superfood”, “plant-based”, “keto”, “detox”, “lean” or “low”
5. Avoid any smoothies labeled with words such as “treat” or “hulk”
6. Ask if the smoothie store can replace any added sugar with a sugar-free sweetener.

And Remember…