How Much Does A Green Smoothie Cost To Make?
Trying to balance the expense of a healthy diet with getting the right nutrition can be a struggle. Green smoothies are an easy way to get a large number of fruit and vegetable servings – and all the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients they include – but I get questions about how much they cost.
Are green smoothies expensive? How much does a green smoothie cost to make? Are homemade green smoothies an affordable option as part of a healthy diet?
Green Smoothie Cost Breakdown
To answer this question, I selected a basic green smoothie recipe to evaluate on the basis of cost. All ingredients were purchased at Trader Joe’s and were used to make 72 ounces of green smoothie. Prices were as follows:
3 ounces organic Smoothie Greens with chard – $1.39 for 3 ounce bag = $1.39- 2 ounces organic kale – $1.79 for 12 ounce bag = $0.30
- 8 ounces organic spinach – $2.29 for 12 ounce bag = $1.53
- 16 ounces (2 cups) frozen mixed organic berries – $2.99 for 16 ounce bag = $2.99
- 2 oranges – $.79 each = $1.58
- 2 organic bananas – $.19 each = $0.38
- 6-8 drops organic liquid stevia – $6.99 for 2 ounces = $0.02
3 ounces organic Smoothie Greens with chard – $1.39 for 3 ounce bag = $1.39Adding up the prices of the ingredients needed for this recipe, the cost to make one 72-ounce blender-full of green smoothie is $8.19. That’s just 12 cents per ounce to make a green smoothie.
If you drink a quart of this nutritious deliciousness each day – my recommendation – you’ll pay $3.76 to make a 32-ounce green smoothie.
That means that 16 ounces, which is the size of that grande coffee you might sip every morning, will set you back just $1.88. That’s a lot cheaper than a latte! Of course, if you shop at a club store or can get your groceries on sale, you bring that cost down even lower.
Making your green smoothie at home absolutely is a more affordable option than buying premade juices at your local smoothie shop or grocery store. Starbucks’ juices come in 15.2 ounce bottles that cost between $2.99 and $6.99 – which is comparable with other bottled pressed juices like BluePrint and Suja. Jamba Juice’s 16 ounce freshly-squeezed juices average $4.99. And NONE of these juices have the fiber in a green smoothie!
The Nutrition in a Green Smoothie
If you still think green smoothies are too expensive, consider the nutritional benefits you get from just one serving.
The recipe above includes roughly 10 servings of fruits and vegetables. If you drink half of it each day (32 ounces as recommended), you’ll be meeting the US Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommendation of five servings of fruits and vegetables each day for adults.1 That’s an entire day’s worth of fruits and vegetables for just $3.76--by noon, if you drink it for breakfast!
Of course, you’ll also be fueling your body with necessary vitamins and minerals. A box of macaroni and cheese may only cost $.99 cents, but it won’t come close to giving you the wide range of nutrients you’ll get from a single green smoothie – which provides vitamins and minerals like:
- Vitamin C – which reduces the risk of chronic disease and fights heart disease risk factors
- Potassium – which helps prevent stroke and regulate blood pressure
- Vitamin K – which plays a role in blood clotting and can treat osteoporosis and bone loss
- Vitamin A – which has benefits for healthy eyes and skin
- Manganese – which supports healthy bones and joints
These are just some of the many nutrients you’ll get in your daily serving of green smoothie, under $4 for a whole quart! You could spend between two and three times as much on a salad for lunch, but it may not include the same nutritional benefits – and even those popular fruit-and-nut snack bars don’t come close to offering the same bang for the buck.
Eating a healthy diet doesn’t have to break the bank. Green smoothies are an affordable, nutritious, and delicious solution when it comes to getting your daily servings of fruits and vegetables and a whole range of vitamins and minerals. Start skipping your daily coffee run and make a green smoothie instead. Your wallet and your waistline will thank you.
Robyn Openshaw, MSW, is the bestselling author of The Green Smoothies Diet, 12 Steps to Whole Foods, and 2017’s #1 Amazon Bestseller and USA Today Bestseller, Vibe. Learn more about how to make the journey painless, from the nutrient-scarce Standard American Diet, to a whole-foods diet, in her free video masterclass 12 Steps to Whole Foods.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links that help support the GSG mission without costing you extra. I recommend only companies and products that I use myself.
Resources:
- Dietary Guidelines 2015-2020. Retrieved from: https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/chapter-1/a-closer-look-inside-healthy-eating-patterns/#table-1-1
Posted in: Green Smoothies, Relationships, Whole Food
What will the price be at the shop?
Probably $5 for a 24-oz. smoothie.
Katie,
Just think, though….You are actually SAVING money, becuase I am sure that there will be LESS doctor’s bills! Or, is there nothing at all that you couldn’t do without? Take courage, if it is something you WANT to do, I am sure you will find a way to do it. 🙂
Best wishes and warmest regards,
Nicole
Robyn, what would you suggest for an underweight 18 month who is allergic to tree nuts, bananas, avocados and a few other fruits. How would I supplement?
Whole, raw goat milk. Also make it into kefir (or yogurt).
I forgot lactose intolerant as well, is that still ok?
Have your baby try the goat milk, because the smaller fat molecule is often easily tolerated by the lactose intolerant.
The La Leche League folks would string me up, but if you can find a person who passes a blood test and whose lifestyle (i.e. bodily fluids) you trust, you might look for a breast milk donor. I did this with my 3rd child. I realize this is a difficult thing, but I did it when I was severely underweight (due to stress) and my milk dried up so I was unable to nurse and my baby had all the food sensitivities that you describe. You get really resourceful when you’re both educated about nutrition AND desperate.
Nicole,
We generally don’t go the doctor 😉 My budget doesn’t include many ‘extras’ to give up. Oh, we definitely could scrape together a few dollars here and there. You’re absolutely right about that. All I was saying was that many health-conscious people on a lower budget do not have $5/day fast food/Starbucks habits that they can give up. Giving up our entertainment budget of $25/month could surely make a few smoothies. But it doesn’t cover the whole month 🙂
Robyn,
I’m not sure why you think LLL would not be supportive of milk sharing. All of my friends who are very much into LLL (including LLL leaders) are huge supporters of shared breastfeeding. They have donated milk to each other, physically nursed each others’ babies/toddlers, etc. I guess I could see the national policy being more restrictive due to liability, but the local feel is very much supportive of milk and mom-sharing!
No LLL leader would hook me up with a breast milk donor because of HIV fears (liability), but yes, if you stay grass roots, that might help! I got no help from LLL when my milk dried up and I was in desperate need. I was surprised. I begged the NICU at Primary Children’s to hook me up with the moms who were stashing milk in freezers, and they wouldn’t. But maybe my experience is an anomaly. (I did find my own donors privately, and I got breast milk with a doctor’s prescription from the breast milk bank in Denver. Very expensive, BTW.)
Katie,
I totally understand what you mean…I guess all you can do is to do the best you can, and hope and pray for the best. 🙂 Could you do one every other day, etc? I hope you find a way. It can be hard sometimes, I know… the perpetual bills etc, do take a toll on you for sure. Keep your head up, though because I am sure you will find a way! 🙂
Warm wishes,
-Nicole
I’d love to get my hands on some donated breastmilk up here in Tacoma, WA!! I called bmilk banks and they were just so expensive. There was one close by in Canada, but bmilk can’t cross country lines. Guess I should live in the bush where all the milking moms pass the babies around 😉 I know a few other nursing moms, but either their supply is low for themselves or the idea repulses them so I don’t even ask. Bummer that people don’t think like this anymore!!
I paid $2.50 an OUNCE for months, getting milk from the milk bank, until I found a local donor whose son was in the ICU with his guts outside his body, having multiple surgeries, for the better part of a year. (I told her if she EVER needs ANYTHING, I’m her girl because I owe her so much. And by the way her little boy is fine.)
YES you read that figure right. Cost me about $2,000 a month and of course insurance had no interest in paying for it. But my sickly baby started to thrive immediately, after every food/formula just caused her endless allergic reactions. She weighed 13 lbs. at 9 months old and quickly doubled her weight when given plenty of donor breast milk. What a blessing.
Hi! I am a single mom with two growing boys. I have a food budget of only about $400 a month. I just started drinking green smoothies. I too am concerned about the cost. It was good to see it broken down.
So far I am using my regular blendar and new magic bullet (that my mom got me for Christmas.)
Yesterday I spent $170 at health food store buying raw cashews and almonds, organic greens, veggies, and fruits. I also bought some nutritional yeast. Obviously I can’t spend that every week, but the nuts and yeast should last about two weeks.
I do have a Costco membership (it is free because a family member works there,) so I think I will buy spinach and frozen fruit there. Even if every green smoothies only have spinach in them I think I can make my $100 a week food budget work. Especially as I cut more meat and junk out.
My actual biggest challenge is that my oldest son has sensory problems and hates the feel of the green smoothies in his mouth, especially the strawberriy seeds. He is 12, so not only are his sensory issues a problem, but so is the fact that before I didn’t know what was best and he is used to junk, fast food, and white bread. But he is drinking two ounces a day of green smoothie with his choice of fruit (and I add the green.) So we will add one ounce a week until he is up to a pint.
Thanks so much for teaching me, plus in your book saying that organic is best but regular fruits and veggies are still better than none. This make sme feel better.
You’re probably right about the official LLL organization not helping. My friends are all members of LLL, but they arranged the milk sharing as friends, not as LLL-participants/leaders. The reason we have so many milk-sharing friends is because we all know each other from natural living/parenting yahoogroups. So we were only asking other ‘hippie’ moms to do it, so no one was grossed out 🙂
I never donated to my friends though, partly because the one who needed it was very strict vegan and I was ashamed of my diet compared to hers.
Becky R: You can save a lot of money if you buy your nuts and seeds in larger quantities. (And beans, lentils, grains, seaweeds, etc.) A good way to do this is to find a buying club in your area. You can also order from the grower or sometimes find good deals on amazon.
We limit our selection of nuts, in order to buy larger quantities. So, I often use almonds and sunflower seeds in food processor recipes that call for things we may not have on hand, like macadamia nuts or pine nuts. The texture may not be quite right, but that’s okay. You can also work your way up to a large selection by buying a different 25 lb. bag every few months.
My first child, I had an abundance of milk ( stored in the freezer) and she was stubborn and would not take a bottle- which I was fine with, I just had about 60 bags of milk. I called the LLL and they gave me the name and number of a woman that had adopted a baby and wanted her to have breast ,ilk. So, I drove about an hour to meet her in the parking lot and hand over the “goods”. I cried on the way home. A little bit of sad tears ( my body had worked so hard to make that milk for my baby) and happy tears too- knowing that another baby got the benefits of my breast milk. That was about 8 years ago, and when the LLL had told me about this woman, I had no idea that breast milk donation and or sharing even existed.
Our family is on a limited budget, yet I have found the green smoothie lifestyle very affordable. The smoothies are so filling that there is less snacking. You don’t have to add fancy expensive ingredients and I only buy organic when cost effective. Spinach, strawberries, banana and ground flax are our staples. I actually get excited when we finish a bag of Costco spinach because of the nutrition we consumed!
We now crave green crunchy veggies. Persian cucumbers are a new fun snack.
Our family is on a limited budget, yet I have found the green smoothie lifestyle very affordable. The smoothies are so filling that there is less snacking. You don’t have to add fancy expensive ingredients and I only buy organic when cost effective. Spinach, strawberries, banana and ground flax are our staples. I actually get excited when we finish a bag of Costco spinach because of the nutrition we consumed!
We now crave green crunchy veggies. Persian cucumbers are a new fun snack.
I gotta tell you, the price list is good, however, I live in Smyrna Ga and those prices can’t be found here even on sale for organic produce. I think Green Smoothies are worth it regardless but I think the prices would be triple what you suggest. Still worth it though, very much so worth it.
Have you considered franchising a smoothy bar