Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Protein Smoothie Review

Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Protein Smoothie Review. I am not much of a smoothie person. My kids love smoothies I make from Trader Joe’s frozen fruit and yogurt and I make those all the time, but I was intrigued by the idea of a protein pumpkin spice smoothie so I picked on up the other day on a whim.

WARNING – This was brought up by a reader. This product contains caffeine through coffee extract. Not sure the reasoning behind Trader Joe’s putting caffeine in this product. I am not against caffeine per se, but please disclose it on the packaging.

Let’s just say that Trader Joe’s goes way overboard every year with the pumpkin spice foods. I was shopping there the other day (I feel like I am there almost every day. Teenagers are expensive to feed!) and the employee checking out my stuff was telling me that the pumpkin stuff was starting to roll in. I said there was so much of it that I couldn’t keep track of it and she pulls out this multi-page cheat sheet that they give the employees to remember everything that comes out. It was crazy the amount of products they have. Unfortunately, I can’t get to them all before they disappear and are replaced by Christmas stuff!

A lot of times I am in a hurry to get out the door to work and need something I can just drink on the way to work that will fill me up. So I occasionally have a protein smoothie ready to go in the fridge for when I can’t make breakfast. Since it’s the season I decided to try the pumpkin spice one. Pumpkin spice is a tricky thing. A little goes a long ways. Many times food makers overdo the spice and it’s awful. Tasting this one was just like eating liquid pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving!  It was like drinking the pumpkin pie filling you buy in cans at the store. It was smooth and tasty but left a weird feeling in my mouth after drinking it like the smoothie was sticking to the inside of my mouth.  The whole bottle is only 270 calories so might need more to eat or not. If you like pumpkin spice in your food, then this might be for you.

INGREDIENTS: REDUCED FAT
MILK (REDUCED FAT MILK,
NONFAT MILK, VITAMIN A
PALMITATE, VITAMIN D3),
WATER, PUMPKIN PUREE,
BLUE AGAVE SYRUP, WHEY
PROTEIN CONCENTRATE,
SOY PROTEIN ISOLATE,
COFEE EXTRACT (WATER,
COFFEE), CONTAINS 2% OR
LESS OF: NATURAL FLAVORS,
DIPOTASSIUM PHOSPHATE,
GELLAN GUM, GROUND
CINNAMON, PAPRIKA
OLEORESIN (FOR COLOR),
GROUND NUTMEG,
GROUND ALLSPICE,
SALT, CARRAGEENAN,
GROUND CLOVE.
CONTAINS MILK, SOY.