#256 Soft drink reviews return !! (Innocent Mangoes, Passion fruits, Apples) review – “Fragrant, Full-flavoured, and Nutritious“ – (7.5/10).

Soft drink reviews return !! (Innocent Mangoes, Passion fruits, Apples) review – “Fragrant, Full-flavoured, and Nutritious“ – (7.5/10).

The Good

“More nutrient content than Innocent Strawberries & Bananas”.

“Good brand message”.

“Smooth and natural smell”.

“Natural taste and aftertaste”.

“Natural tang present”.

“Full flavoured”.

“Full mouthfeel”.

The Bad

“Expensive”.

“Not enough sweetness”.

“Unbalanced”.

“Acidity overpowering”.

“Not Session-able”.

Introduction

If you’ve been following me for a long time, you’ll know many moons ago soft drink reviews graced my blogs, including Cowbelle milkshakes, Schloer fizzy drinks, and a range of smoothies including Tesco own brand, Innocent, and The Juice Company ranges from Aldi. Links available below (Sources).

2 years later, after January 2019, I’m attempting my next “Dry” month this August. Since then, a lot has happened in my life including exhausting supermarket supplies of new ciders to review, relationship breakups, job losses, and a global pandemic. Due to this, I didn’t do a Dry January in 2021, but I like the idea of doing it for health benefits.

The main benefit I am doing this for is reducing risk for alcoholic hepatitis developing, which can be caused by regular drinking over long periods of time. This is reversible though by stopping drinking. Read below (Dry January benefits).

Ranges

The main smoothie ranges from my undercover trip to Tesco, revealed Tropicana, Innocent, and Naked.

Today’s review will be my 3rd Innocent review, following “Strawberries & Bananas” and “Wonder Green”.

Welcome

3. Innocent Mangoes, Passion fruits, Apples.

For the 750ml, calories are identical to Strawberries & Bananas at 51 per 100ml, so *383* calories for the bottle, or 153 calories for 250ml.

I purchased the 250ml bottle for £1.79, or 72p per 100ml.

Bracket number below = number for one of 5 a day e.g. *(1) apple and approximately *(1/2) a mango.

Please note though that the NHS suggests smoothies shouldn’t contribute more than one of your 5 a day, so you can only count one of the fruits below. It’s also noteworthy that the juice extraction process can reduce nutrients compared to whole fruit consumption.

Innocent Mangoes, Passion fruits, Apples 250ml smoothie includes: (1)* apple and 1/3 of a mango which is around 50 grams, so less than the recommended 80g portion size from the NHS. It also includes half a banana which is less than one portion.

Let’s look at the drinks’ 3 most abundant fruits …

Apple is the most abundant fruit here, which is low in vitamins and minerals, but compensates with it’s high antioxidant and fibre content, which slows sugar absorption, increasing feelings of fullness, and improving digestion. The antioxidants are also beneficial for blood sugar control and heart health.

Banana contains far more potassium than apple and pear, which is needed for muscle contraction and controlling the amount of water inside your body building blocks or “cells”. Banana is also high in vitamin C, which helps your body produce connective tissues, with almost double the amount found in Apple.

Mango is very rich in vitamin C with over 4 times that of banana per same weight, and it also contains a considerable quantity of vitamin A.

As previously mentioned vitamin C, helps your body produce connective tissues.

Vitamin A helps the health of your skin and eyes, aswell as reproductive and immune systems.

The bottle suggested the smoothie contained a blend of both “crushed fruit”, and “juice”. It was nice that some elements of the whole fruit were retained by including crushed fruit for nutrition purposes.

The bottle also supported the above nutritional information, highlighting fibre and vitamin C as the main nutrients within, using orange marker. Both vitamin C and fibre were richer in this smoothie than “Innocent Strawberries and Bananas (ISB)”, with 100ml providing 29% Reference intake Vitamin C, alongside 1.4g fibre.

This compares to just 9.7% Reference intake of vitamin C and 1.2g of fibre in ISB.

250ml works out at 72.5% reference intake vitamin C, and 3.5g fibre.

The drink was also Rainforest alliance certified, and suggested the sugar all occurred naturally within the fruit used, with none added. This suggested the drinks producer had considered the environmental impact of the product.

Smell

A delightfully tropical scent quickly emerged. It remained smooth and natural throughout, and remained present on subsequent breaths.

Taste

Acidity immediately appeared moderate, developing over time, and increasing a little into the aftertaste.

A natural fruity taste was present, however acidity certainly overpowered sweetness. The flavour was natural and strong.

The drink was also too acidic to be session-able. Acidity made the end of the taste rather harsh.

Not enough sweetness was apparent to balance.

There was a lasting tart aftertaste, not unpleasant, yet nothing enjoyable for me.

Full mouthfeel was present with no wateriness.

Summary

“Fragrant, full-Flavoured and Nutritious”.

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