How hard can it be to make a smoothie right? I mean all you gotta do is chop up some fruit, pour in some ice, whack in some milk, whizz it all up and BINGO it’s smoothie o’clock. But the thing is, when you’re running around like a headless chicken because your alarm hasn’t gone off or you’ve forgotten to restock the fruit bowl and all that’s in there is a shrivelled satsuma and a badly bruised banana, grabbing a croissant on the train is deffo happening!

In a bid to start the year off right and to help kick that daily croissant craving to the curb, I’m checking out this frozen smoothie pouch subscription service from The Honestly Good Smoothie Company.

Each see through pouch contains everything you could possibly need to whizz up a healthy smoothie, OK sorry let me correct that….everything except the liquid of your choice, but come on everyone has tap water even if your fridge is looking devoid of almond milk! But the very best bit is that all the chopping has been done for you, so you literally tear off the top of the pouch, pop it in your blender, add liquid, whizz, pour, slurp. Fab for when you’re in a rush, fab for this time of year when let’s face it we could all do with a bit of a superfood injection, and fab for stashing in the freezer for those lack of fresh fruit and veg emergencies.

There are 8 different pouches to choose from – Wake Me Up!, Berry Nice, Green Clean Protein, The Waldorf Cool, The Smoothie Spice, The Self Defence One, The Cacaonut One and The Christmas One, which means for the £27.50 subscription charge you can try a different one each day until you figure out which ones float your boat in the flavour department.

I was sent a couple of pouches to try out for myself, here’s what I thought of them:

‘Wake Me Up!’

This salmon pink smoothie contains organic sweet potato, apple, strawberry, rhubarb, almonds, mulberries, chia seeds and red maca root, so basically a whole ton of goodies. I used water for this one as my online shop hadn’t arrived yet and with all the post-Christmas feasting it was literally water or mulled wine! I also hadn’t quite set up my new blender, so in haste I grabbed my trusty stick blender to see if it could handle the frozen chunks. In a word….no, it got there eventually but it took ages and I’m not sure it will ever be the same again. Top tip: always use a proper blender!

The Wake Me Up smoothie was yummy – looks healthy, feels healthy, tastes healthy, really filling, in fact I struggled to finish it all and it deffo kept me going until lunch. And yes it was fine with just water, but if you prefer your smoothie creamy go for almond milk, coconut water or coconut milk to give it more depth and well if I’m honest…more of a ‘treaty’ feel. Personally, the texture was a bit of an issue for me, it was just a bit too slush puppy frozen. If you’ve got a bit of time I would tip the contents of the pouch into your blender, go and have your shower then blend it once you’re ready for the day. This will give the ingredients a chance to defrost ever so slightly making the blenders job a lot easier and also producing a much more smoothie like consistency. However that being said, when you do blend it straight from the freezer it makes an absolutely fab smoothie bowl; the perfect ‘nice’ cream treat 🙂

‘The Cacaonut One’

Ummm hellooooooo I spy chocolate! Even better it’s the healthy kind 🙂 Containing courgette, sweet potato, banana, blueberries, hazelnuts, cacao nibs, pumpkin seeds and a pinch of good old Pink Himalayan salt this is a purple potassium powerhouse. Having got my backside in gear, I was fully prepped with my new Von Shef blender and some almond milk…let’s do this!

Perhaps I should have taken my own advice, but alas desperate for some smoothie action after a morning workout and the hanger seriously starting to kick in, I took the pouch from the freezer and popped it straight in the blender. And despite the blender being new, hardcore and fairly standard kit for your average foodie experimenter, it wasn’t so keen on the big frozen chunks of sweet potato. Again, my top tip is to leave the pouches to defrost for a bit before blitzing. Not so great if you’re in a rush, but makes a huge difference to the ease of the blend and I’ll be honest, the overall niceness of the smoothie.

To sum up, these smoothie pouches are great for people who are in a rush yet still want something healthy for breakfast, or those that well let’s just say aren’t so keen on the good stuff (a.k.a. fruit and veg dodgers) and need to up their nutrition game. The portions are generous; I could only manage half, however if you want a long drawn out breakfast and certainly if you want to make it to lunch without snacking then a massive shaker full of this stuff is deffo gonna keep the munchies monster at bay.