Not always healthy: ÖKO-TEST finds harmful substances in smoothies

In a current issue (2/2022), ÖKO-TEST examined a total of 20 smoothies, including four organic products. In addition to criteria such as appearance, mouthfeel, smell and taste, a laboratory also checked the ingredients. Not only was the sugar and vitamin C content determined, but also tested for critical ingredients such as pesticides, germs and the like.

Read the detailed test for a fee at ÖKO-TEST.

Rewe & dm are test winners

Only two products can secure the top grade “very good”, including the organic smoothie apple, elderberry, chokeberry & raspberry dm (to the shop). The second test winner is a conventional product from rewe: The Rewe to go Cassis blackberry apple smoothie (to the shop).

Six other smoothies do at least “good”, but only three organic products are free of harmful substances:

• Organic smoothie berry fruit from Alnatura
• Organic Smoothie Strawberry-Banana from Proviant fruit factory
• Organic smoothie with grape juice, apple pulp and strawberry pulp from people

The other three products also perform “well”, but here the laboratory shows traces of pesticides:

• The Smoothie Pineapple Strawberry & Apple by innocent
• Rio D’Oro Smoothie Red #7 by Aldi
• Taste to go 100% fruit smoothie strawberry banana by Norma

pesticides and pollutants

Five out of 20 smoothies tested cut off “satisfactory”, seven others are only “sufficient”. No product is defective.

In a total of 11 products, the laboratory found the spray poison Captan, which is suspected of being cancerous. But that’s not all. The experts found traces of pesticides in almost all of the smoothies tested. Only the four organic products and the conventional test winner from Rewe do not contain any harmful substances. Chlorate was also found in two other smoothies. These can be residues of cleaning agents or disinfectants.

You can take the detailed test Read it for a fee at ÖKO-TEST.

Make your own healthy smoothies

Instead of buying the smoothies ready-mixed and expensive off the shelf, you can also prepare the vitamin bombs yourself at home. Store-bought products are almost incomparable to home-mixed smoothies: on the one hand, they are usually pasteurized to keep them longer, which means that vitamins are lost. On the other hand, these drinks usually have more calories and sugar than homemade smoothies and don’t fill you up for as long.

If you want to make the healthy drink yourself, you need the right tools. Smoothie makers are best suited here. These are high-performance blenders that conjure up delicious smoothies or soups even from hard fruit and vegetables. Our colleagues from AllesBeste tested 22 of these devices. We briefly present the test winner, price tip and entry-level model in the following table. You can read the detailed report here at CHIP.de.