Starbucks Wants to Stuff Fists Full Of Kale Down Your Thirsty Gullet

Starbucks, the one place in the world where you can order a cup of whipped cream with a shot of caramel syrup and call it coffee, is ready to make you healthy. Fresh off its highly successful “Race Together” campaign, the chain wants to tackle another important subject: The amount of vegetables you’re eating every day. So it’s bringing in kale, which is now officially over.

I never understood the fascination with kale. It’s delicious, yes, but it’s also highly overrated and just sits in my fridge until I throw it out angrily because I hate myself and promise never to buy it again because I don’t know one recipe that calls for it. But now, Starbucks is going to solve all that. Instead of you going to the grocery store and becoming sad when you realize that you kind of hate kale, you can go to your local coffeeteria and enjoy a healthy fruit/vegetable smoothie.

Starbucks, which has been testing smoothies since last year, has partnered with Evolution Fresh and will be bringing three smoothies nationwide. Unfortunately, none of these smoothies are the Tazo Berry thing I used to love back in 2002. Fortunately, however, they will provide the consumer with a good source of vegetables. In fact, one smoothie will provide almost a quarter of your fruit/vegetable intake for the day without having to actually meet and get to know the fruit and/or vegetable yourself. Each of the three smoothies—Sweet Greens, Strawberry and Mango Carrot—are made only with ingredients that “nature put there,” and come with the option of adding kale for whatever it does for you. Removes toxins? Takes down free radicals? I still don’t know what it does, you guys, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask. I actually think that vegetables are an illuminati conspiracy, but that might just be because I don’t like or understand them. But other people seem to love this whole smoothie business.

From the Starbucks Newsroom (which I like to imagine looks like the bullpen at the Yale Daily News in Gilmore Girls):

“It’s been fun watching our customers get creative. Just like their morning coffee beverages, people are creating their personal favorites with our Evolution Fresh™ Smoothies – adding extra Greek yogurt, kale or a scoop of protein powder. We’ve also seen people grab a package of fresh blueberries or a banana and ask their barista to blend it in,” said Katie Wright, a product manager who has worked on the team developing and testing the smoothies in stores.

Fun! I wonder how many people are also asking that a shot of caramel syrup or three spoonfuls of sugar be added, thereby removing any kind of health-related benefits of a concoction titled “sweet greens.” Who am I kidding, though? I’m still going to try every one of these and then pretend like I don’t know that I still have to exercise and eat right outside of drinking a branded smoothie. You too? It can’t be any worse than those green powder shakes you buy at Costco.