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Gimmicky, yes, but it's still tasty
Beyond Juice provides nutritious delights without overdoing it
| Wednesday, Jan 2 2008 5:35 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Jan 2 2008 5:41 PM
Why do we eat? Sounds like a dumb question -- so we don't die, dummy -- but people do look at this simple act in different ways.
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Many derive significant pleasure from the process, in different ways. Others are like an old boss of mine, blind to the allure of good food and basically considering it fuel for the tank and little more. "I can get the same full feeling from McDonald's," he once told me. Wow. A meal at Café Med would be a waste of money on such a chap, that's for sure.
I brought this question up because of a new smoothie/sandwich/salad restaurant that opened in Bakersfield called Beyond Juice. This franchised outfit's claim to fame is something called "A Meal in a Cup," a 20-ounce fruit smoothie that has a substance called "Basic Formula" in it. The menu says this ingredient includes amino acids, wheat germ, various vitamins, protein, brewer's yeast and other ingredients that together give you more fiber than a bowl of 100 percent bran cereal, no cholesterol, less than 1 gram of fat and two-thirds of your daily recommended fruit and vegetable servings. Calories for these drinks range from 213 to 467.
A sign on the wall notes these are all made with deionized flaked ice, "so the vitamins, minerals and nutrients can be assimilated into the bloodstream almost instantly without the need for digestion."
So, that's where I went wrong. My whole life I've been consuming ice without checking its ionization status, thereby possibly depriving myself of nutrients which could have turned me into Superman. If only I were a registered nutritionist who could evaluate these claims as either being brilliant and progressive or a bunch of hooey.
Instead I'm a humble (maybe) restaurant columnist who had lunch here and just in case the meal in a cup wasn't enough (those calorie counts look pretty low), I ordered some of the restaurant's sandwiches, too: the honey-roasted turkey ($6.45), the pastrami Panini ($4.55) and the roast chicken Panini ($4.55). For drinks we sampled the Total Energy ($4.95), Alive ($4.85) and the Very Berry Berry ($4.85).
The drinks were decent, like a grittier version of what Jamba Juice serves, and slightly less sweet to boot. I meant that as praise. Total energy had bananas, strawberry, vanilla, honey and "Basic Formula." Alive had orange juice, peaches, bananas and BF. The last one featured a fruit salad of papaya, lime, banana, blueberries and strawberries, and at 312 calories would be the one I was ordering if I was on a New Year's diet. It does not feel like you're depriving yourself.
The pastrami, on the other hand, did feel like that -- the meat was dry and probably far healthier than the pastrami I usually eat. I preferred the chicken sandwich, which had balsamic vinegar, and the cold turkey sandwich, which had Muenster cheese and avocado spread. There was no calorie count available on that, but it tasted both healthy and satisfying on wheat bread. I wouldn't really call Beyond Juice (located near Santa Fe Burrito and Shogun Palace on California Avenue) a health food restaurant, but it does come pretty close.
They do have specialty formulas (Jamba would call them "boosts") that you can add to your drinks, including Allergy Away, Love Potion, The Morning After, Fat Burner, Buff Body and Total Recall. I have no idea if any of them actually work, but it sure would be fun to throw them all into one drink. I'll bet you could scale tall buildings in a single bound with that, especially if the ice is deionized.