FYI, if you live in Indianapolis, you can get a free 16-ounce Orange Mango Banana or Banana Chocolate Vivanno on Tuesday, August 5 and Tuesday, August 12 – from 2 to 4 p.m. All you have to do is flash your gym membership card or Starbucks card at your local Starbucks. I’ve had theses smoothies and they’re fairly good, though almost anything that’s free tastes good to me (says the girl who eats her way through Whole Food’s free sample trays whenever she shops for sushi.) Here’s the nutritional information for the Banana Chocolate Blend and the Orange Mango Blend.

I have no idea if they’re doing this in markets outside of Indianapolis, but it might be worth calling your local Starbucks and asking.

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PastaQueen enters the kitchen and takes the smoothie blender off of the shelf. She tosses in vanilla yogurt, milk, protein powder, frozen blueberries and vanilla extract. She turns on the blender and stirs the concoction with a stir stick through a hole in the lid’s top.

PastaQueen hears slight crunching sound. “Hmmm, those blueberries are really frozen together.” Crunch, thump, crunch. Uses stir stick to try and blend them together. “Man, I guess I should defrost them first next time.”

PastaQueen turns off blender. She removes the lid and licks the stir stick. She pours the smoothie into a tall glass. A cylindrical object covered in the blue, gooey mixture plops out. PastaQueen looks at object in confusion. “What is this, frozen ice?” She rinses object off to discover it is the battered plastic stopper that is placed in the hole in the lid when not using the stir stick. She glances down at her smoothie, suddenly noticing the grainy texture.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you the fiberglass smoothie!

PastaQueen pours smoothie full of small plastic bits down [...]

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