health drinks

I love the idea of ditching the morning cup-of-joe for a healthy, vitamin-packed smoothie and/or vegetable juice. There are plenty of fruit-based juices but I've been looking for a vegetable juice and wasn't having much luck. I wanted one that didn't list five fruit juices before mentioning a vegetable, if at all. I wanted something pure. No sugar, additives or fruit juice. So I was very happy to come across the Essential Greens Veggie Juice at Trader Joe's yesterday.

Ingredients in this sweet little (60 calories total!) bottle? Juices from celery, spinach, parsley, cucumber, kale, romaine and at least two of the following sprouts: wheat grass, sunflower greens, clover sprouts. That's it! The bottle says it contains two full pounds of juiced vegetables in each bottle.

This morning we opened the bottle and blended half of it with a banana and maybe a half cup of both frozen blackberries and frozen blueberries. The result wasn't sweet, but made an icy smoothie both my five year old son and I enjoyed.

Of course, juicing the veggies yourself is always ideal but this is a pretty convenient and easy way to do it. My local Trader Joe's sells this 15oz bottle for $3.69 plus tax.