THINGS TO DRINK, 1 to 10 scale! (My interview with Ken Krogue of Forbes)
I told my lifelong best friend, Laura, in San Francisco, that a Forbes article talked about GSG. I told her I was doing an interview with the writer, Ken Krogue, founder of InsideSales, the next day.
She texted me, “Tell him Mitt is your cousin. Forbes loves stuff like that.”
I started that morning with this inner dialogue:
“For once DON’T ramble off about stupid things. Don’t don’t don’t. Do NOT talk about Mitt Romney being your mom’s first cousin. Then he might actually KNOW Mitt and somehow perhaps discover Mitt doesn’t actually know you from Eve.”
(The Romneys, we are a BIG family. I have 65 first cousins. My mom has more.)
So Ken calls me for our interview. Right while I am reminding myself to, as my friend Ben says,
“FILTER!”
Ken tells me he is jumping in and out of cabs in New York City, and this is what comes out of my mouth:
“I love New York City! Just last Thanksgiving, I was running along the Lower East Side, along the Hudson in Manhattan, and I found a dead body in the river!”
That’s good stuff. Really cool thing to say when you have 20 minutes to somehow capture your great passion in life, which you feel is wildly important to millions of people’s futures.
It’s at LEAST as uncool as name-dropping your famous cousin you don’t actually even know.
We did eventually roll around to the great green smoothie:
Ken: “On a scale of 1 to 10, where is a green smoothie? Is it a 10?”
Robyn: “Well, no. It’s a 9.”
Ken: “Wow, then what’s a 10?”
Robyn: “Fresh juice made from greens and vegetables. I make cucumber, beet, celery, carrot juice. Or a shot of wheat grass juice.”
Ken: “What about Naked Juice? I know it’s pasteurized. The bottle says ‘lightly pasteurized.’”
Me: “Mmm, it’s a fruit smoothie, all the enzymes killed, some of the vitamins and minerals degraded, with a little pinch of some good green stuff like spirulina in there. I don’t know that I have anything for 6, 7, and 8, but I give that green Naked juice….maybe a 5.”
Ken: “How about a V-8?”
Me: “Um, that’s a 4. Too much salt. Very pasteurized. High in sugars. Mostly tomato, not much else.”
Ken: “And a glass of orange juice?”
Me: “2 or 3. An orange is a synergistic thing of beauty, a whole food. Lots of fiber. Some sugar, not too much. The juice, though, has no fiber and the sugar of eight oranges! I’ve never fed my kids juice as I’ve raised them.”
Ken: “And how about a soda?”
Me: “Can we have negative numbers?”
Ken and I decide on a ZERO for the soda.
He asks me to do a ranking, for DRINKS a busy executive might buy. The idea is to help someone trying to make better choices. In Ken’s case, the demographic he calls the “old, fat, busy executive.” But we’re all busy, whether we’re an executive or not.
I’m in the demographic you could call “trying-to-pretend-I’m-not-
Matthew, a “40-ish, busy, thin, single-dad realtor,” sometimes texts me, “IM2BZ2P!”
What about you?
Help me if I’m leaving anything out, or if you disagree with this ranking, tell me why:
THINGS YOU CAN DRINK, WORST TO BEST
-1 Red Bull and other energy drinks, alcoholic drinks
0 Sodas, Diet Sodas, Coffee, Nutrasweet Drinks (Capri Sun, etc.)
1 Zevia or other naturally sweetened sodas, no chemicals, or stevia-sweetened Vitamin Water Zero
2 Fruit juices (no sugar added)
3 V-8
4 Naked Juice, the green one (there’s a small amount of greens in it, read the label for how small!)
5 Kombucha, no sugars added
6 Kefir of any kind, no sugars added (add only fruit)
7 WATER (arguably a 10, because of its importance, but something has to go here in #7)
8 Our green drink you shake up with water
9 green smoothie (no sweetener added)
10 Fresh green / vegetable juice, and wheat grass shots
Posted in: Green Smoothies
Hi Robyn,
Great list! Very good information. I can’t wait to see the Forbes article as well. We sure loved your lecture in Provo last night. Thanks for all you do to educate us, I am always learning something new from you.
Thanks!
Holly J.
Juicing has been pretty popular recently. Why do you rank vegetable juices higher than green smoothies?
Why are vegetable juices higher than green smoothies? What about tea? Thanks!
great list.. very helpful.. I “liked” it on FB so that I could share it with friends… but am curious why you rated kombucha low. Also why kefir isn’t higher (by the way, are you talking about homemade kefir made from your own kefir grains or the commercial kefir)… also, what is the criteria for making it to the top of the list… vitamin content? because all things being equal, the kefir knocks the socks off of everything else with its probiotic content, so as an overall nutritional drink, I would think it’d be a 10. Entertaining article. Thx.
Does all alcohol deserved to be lumped as a -1? Is a glass of wine worse for you than drinking a 12-16 oz of coke? Is a plain cup of coffee really worse for you than pasteurized OJ? Where would you put unsweetened green tea?
I too want to know why fresh pressed juices are better than smoothies. Juice may pack a bigger nutrient punch, but it lacks the fiber and bulk of a smoothie. And here’s another question… can a “4” ranking make up for a -1 or what’s the make up scale? If you drink caffeinated sodas, how many green smoothies or whatever will you need to cancel it out – do you think? 🙂
Nice ranking & congrats on your article in Forbes.
Hopefully those ‘busy’ folks are eating (chewing) healthy foods too…
When you are suggesting the wheat grass element is that a problem for those that have ‘wheat’ sensitivities then do you think?
Sounds like our big Irish Clan…except they are then referred to as ‘shirt tail relations’.. 🙂
So then are you saying with your cousins situation you are all related in Utah?? teehee
Genius! I am an athlete and have been drinking green smoothies for almost 1 year now. I have never had more power!
Also, I am no longer in my childbearing years and going through this change has been very enlightening. I don’t know that I would be able to say this if i were not drinking my green smoothies daily!
Tally ho Robyn!
I would agree with D about the green smootines and fiber. Entire books have been written on the imporatnce of fiber alone. The execption would probably be somenone whose health is so comprimised that they need juice because it is more easily aborbed into the system.
I am very curious about ranking the green juices higher than green smoothies…I thought you advocated the opposite. Can you explain? (LOVE my green smoothies thanks to you Robyn, and now wondering if I should pull out the juicer?)
Hi Robyn,
Thank you for this post because it brings up a question I’ve been meaning to ask…
Since I don’t own a blender YET (and won’t be able to invest in one for some time) I have been looking for green smoothie vendors. I work in the Financial District in New York and, while I haven’t found a green smoothie vendor close by, there are SEVERAL juice bars and trucks in my vicinity. So, I’ve been frequenting those instead. I vary my ingredients slightly from day to day, but my typical “green juice” consists of spinach, kale, parsley, cucumber, apple or pineapple or banana, and a wheat grass shot or other “booster.” Since I’ve never juiced at home, I don’t know how much juice actually comes from each ingredient, and have wondered if my juices might be almost all apple with just enough vegetable juice to turn them green…
So my question for you is, do you think this can be a reasonable substitute until I can make or purchase green smoothies? Are there ingredients I should emphasize or avoid in juice form?
Thanks!
Hi Robyn, What an awesome blog you have! This article was great…it’s amazing how healthy fresh Juice is for you, it has worked wonders for me, thanks for sharing! Frank