Teen Tuesday: Smoothie Wars

Think summer. Think teens. Think library. Think smoothie. Today was a VERY successful program based on fruits, vegetables, blenders, and food competitions. I got this idea from YSS member Katherine at Aram Public Library in Delevan at the last WLA conference.

Youth ages 11 to 18 competed in teams in the following categories: Most Creative, Most Colorful, Tastiest, and #PlantSlant People's Choice. My county is currently involved in the Blue Zones Project and as a community organization, the library has been incorporating the Blue Zones Power Nine into our programming. Plant Slant was a perfect tie-in to smoothies since common ingredients include fresh or frozen fruit, greens, juice, and coconut milk (we skipped yogurt and almond milk because of possible food intolerances or allergies).


Our partners from the Blue Zones Project sponsored the event and provided all the ingredients and the prizes - tee shirts and water bottles - for the winners. They also brought their Smoothie Bike, which is a pedal-powered blender. The three of us also judged the competition and then the competitors were asked to vote for their favorite and not to vote for themselves.

All of the teens had watched at least one food show like Chopped or Cupcake Wars and were ready to give our competition a go. They created clever names to go along with their refreshing concoctions. Some made smoothies all the time and some had never made one before today.

This is a great program if you can round up some blenders and some judges and it is not prohibitively expensive to run.