The Los Angeles-based organic and ethically sourced grocery store, Erewhon, has begun to take over Instagram feeds with its brightly colored celebrity smoothie and ice cream collaborations. But are these aesthetically pleasing, 20-plus ingredient smoothies nutritional? 

The collaborations include a Sabrina Carpenter-inspired bright blue smoothie with bits of strawberries, a dash of blue spirulina to give the drink its color and layers of coconut cream, and an ice cream sundae using Chamberlain Coffee’s matcha.

According to Erewhon’s website, the store was not always well-known. It started its humble beginnings in Boston as a 10-foot by 12-foot stall at a market in the ‘60s. 

Founders Aveline and Michio Kushi were then able to relocate Erewhon to a storefront in Los Angeles, in 1969.

In 2011, Tony and Josephine Antoci, co-owners of Erewhon, bought the business and gave the store “an aesthetic glow-up,” Andrea Chang wrote in a Los Angeles Times article.

In 2019, Erewhon gained celebrity status when actors like Sophie Turner and Jonah Hill wore sweatshirts with the store’s name written across them, which were created by two Erewhon shoppers, Nick Santiago and Matthew Hwang. 

The success continued in 2020 as the store became known for its “photogenic food,” Max Berlinger wrote in an article for The New York Times.

“The store seems tailor-made for today’s influencer culture,” he said. “Its fastidious curated assortment, where foods are lit like fashion editorials and are often some combination of organic, gluten-free, biodynamic, free-range and vegan, makes it ripe for snarky quips.”

The “photogenic food” was utilized by influencers like Marianna Hewitt, who created Marianna’s Coconut Cloud Smoothie. Hewitt wanted to create not only a delicious smoothie but one worth sharing on her social media platforms, Seth Abramovitch wrote in an article for The Hollywood Reporter.

Following Hewitt’s smoothie, Hailey Bieber, model and influencer, reached out to Erewhon to create her own smoothie. Hailey Bieber’s smoothie would become the store’s best-seller, selling about 1,200 smoothies per week, Abramovitch said.

With Hailey Bieber’s social media notoriety and her following, who wouldn’t be eager to eat how the star does? it raises the question of whether the smoothies are actually healthy and if the celebrity images attached to Erewhon’s products cause more harm than good.

Connie Diekman, former president of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, said from working with eating disorders for 25 years, she has found young girls need to be reminded of the importance of keeping their bodies healthy rather than achieving an ideal body.

“Everybody is different and not everybody can look the same. I can’t be six foot tall and be lean as can be,” she said. “Therefore when I put on the same clothes that a six-foot-tall celebrity wears, I’m not going to look the same.”

Focusing on what a celebrity eats not only can be harmful to the nutritional values people need, but it also causes people to forget the importance of being themselves, Diekman said.

In 2021, a year before Hailey Bieber’s smoothie collaboration with Erewhon, she announced she would be cutting out all meat (besides fish) from her diet in light of her husband, singer Justin Bieber’s, Lyme disease diagnosis.

While Hailey’s plant-based diet may be healthy for her and her husband, choosing to avoid eating meat and prioritizing the consumption of vegetables and fruits, like her smoothie, can become unhealthy. 

A meal filled with nutritional values can be modeled off of the MyPlate, which is a plate visualization of a healthy diet focused on eating more fruits and vegetables than grains and meat, Diekman said.

Protein does have a place on the MyPlate, and if Hailey Bieber’s fans follow her meatless diet and focus on eating fruits and vegetables, the American Heart Association urges the inclusion of lean protein like artichokes and broccoli.

Hailey Beiber’s smoothie does contain proteins like organic grass-fed whey and organic vanilla collagen creamer but instead lacks lean protein. If fans focus on consuming solely the smoothie for nutritional values, they will not be getting their needed protein intake.

With this in mind, drinking the smoothie to achieve Hailey Bieber’s body and following her diet may cause health conditions like protein deficiency. Also, if the removal of meat from the diet is not done correctly, it can lead to disordered eating.

Another example of celebrity diet culture promoting disordered eating and nutritional deficiencies is the low-carb, high-fat diet Elizabeth Chee wrote in a Vogue Singapore article. A “low-carb, high-fat” diet is ineffective for most as carbs are a main source of glucose, which our bodies need to function optimally,” Chee said.

Like Diekman, Chee thinks dieting cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach as the diets celebrities follow do not work for everyone, especially diets like intermittent fasting.

“For some, skipping breakfast comes naturally. For others, it can cause headaches, fatigue and overeating later in the day,” she said.

Even with the MyPlate model, Diekman said Americans still struggle to eat a good amount of fruits and vegetables.

“I don’t know what the current amount is, but it’s something to the effect of one fruit or two vegetables,” she said. “We should be at two fruits and three, four or five, depending upon your body size, of vegetables. Yeah, we still have work to do,” she said. 

While Erewhon smoothies seem promising to help Americans achieve their fruit intake, Diekman said smoothies have the potential to be helpful or unhelpful depending on their ingredients.

“Does the product stay in your smoothie or are you mashing up and only using the juice? Then also it’s how much sugar you put in those,” Diekman said. 

However, Diekman is hopeful for the future as the media begins to represent all different types of bodies.

“It’s important for all of us, again females predominantly, to remember that our bodies are unique and our goal is to make sure we keep our bodies as healthy as we can,” she said. 

Support Student Media

Hi! I’m Kayla Friedman, A Magazine’s editor-in-chief. My staff and I are committed to bringing you the most important and entertaining news from the realms of fashion, beauty and culture. We are full-time students and hard-working journalists. While we get support from the student media fee and earned revenue such as advertising, both of those continue to decline. Your generous gift of any amount will help enhance our student experience as we grow into working professionals. Please go here to donate to A Magazine.