Chunks of banana and tortilla chips peeked out of a rotten lettuce-colored liquid as we turned on the blender. Just watching the ingredients blend together made us squeamish.
When hearing about a popular YouTube challenge that involved consuming blended food, we were immediately up for it. The Smoothie Challenge began trending last summer and has been attempted by numerous Internet entertainers such as Joey Graceffa and members of O2L. As food enthusiasts and risk takers, we were 110 percent up for it, although many videos ended up with popular YouTubers spitting out their self-made concoctions.
Scavenging around the house, we looked for possible smoothie elements, ending up with 10 ingredients: an apple, a glass of lemonade, a pear, a carton of greek yogurt, a perfectly ripe banana, jam, a bottle of expired mustard, some guacamole, a bag of stale tortilla chips and some mixed nuts. We wrote down each ingredient on slips of paper and then took turns drawing to determine what would go into our smoothies.
We found that the smoothie gods clearly picked a favorite; one blender contained an apple, a pear, a cup of lemonade, strawberry jelly and an unfortunate squirt of bright yellow mustard. In the other blender sat a lump of guacamole and a browned and mushy banana, sprinkled with nuts and stale tortilla chips. The only common ingredient was the greek yogurt, which didn’t really help when mixed with the rest of the ingredients, and a nasty and repulsive odor seeped out of the container.
As the blenders started, the colors in each container swirled together, the blades swallowing up each unsavory ingredient. The first smoothie blended into a subtle peach color, while the other turned into a pale, thick smoothie with a milkshake-like consistency.
Each taking a deep breath, we cautiously sipped our odd beverages. The first drink, which we assumed would actually be like a smoothie, tasted like applesauce, but the sour aftertaste of lemonade lingered in our mouths for quite some time. We had added mustard too, but a small enough amount to drink without much hesitation.
The second smoothie had an overwhelming and unusual stink not unlike vomit. One sip was barely drinkable. It tasted like a stomach stuffed after a Thanksgiving feast, drowned in nasty flavors with a mixture of food chunks.
While the applesauce like smoothie was somewhat bearable, the second one was a challenge Sisyphean task. The first sip proved so painful that we ended up pouring the rest down the drain. Neither of us dared to drink more, and the foul smell had begun to spread around the kitchen.
In the end, this challenge required much more luck than skill. When presented with an entire glass of the vile mixture, even for food enthusiasts like us, it was impossible to finish. After the challenge, our respect for recipe makers and chefs increased as it made us wonder how they could create such exotic yet delicious foods incorporating the most random ingredients.
