this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Herbalife, fucking herbalife.
This weekend, I went into what looked like an indie smoothie shop and dropped an ungodly amount of money on a delicious sounding shake... only to watch the lady drop a scoops of powder and ONE freeze-dried strawberry into a cup with ice. Tasted like ass.
Yet they do have regulars to that shit, and nobody is taking them out of business. I want my fucking $11 back. So anyone reading this doing a class action against Herbalife, I want in...
But I doubt it, since it's a scam that's so normalized we don't realize it's a scam anymore.
Some people jusrt like to be seen carrying these cups. I read about someone who put their Starbucks coffee in a generic travel mug, and their friend said to them "how will everyone know youre drinking Starbucks?"
Except, isn't Herbalife something that's never branded? My cup had some smallbiz-seeming name on it. Definitely not Herbalife.
I subbed to an anti-MLM subreddit in the past, and that's the exact shifty behavior they removeded about Herbalife having. I just hadn't seen it.
Im gonna be honest, I know of Herbal Life in name only, we dont have it here.
Their Schtick is that people start Herbalife "franchises" under another name, but then serve Herbalife. I believe they are generally not supposed to use the word "Herbalife" anywhere on their merchandising.
Thanks.
If it wasn't Herbalife, it would be some other food service-grade ingredients. I'm not sure it would be any better, but I'm also not sure it would be any worse.
Last I saw, Tropical Smoothie Cafe (national chain) does fresh or frozen fruit exclusively for $5-6, and Herbalife does cheap flavored soy powders for $11
There is a massive quality difference. They don't even advertise readily that there's soy in in them; I had to look it up. Thankfully I'm not allergic. And that's the thing. They sell fake shit and intentionally hide that fact.
There's certainly good smoothie places that are no comparison. But that's not what these places would be. If you're setting up a smoothie shop and decide to use Herbalife, it probably wouldn't otherwise be replaced by fresh fruit. Instead it would be replaced by some other protein powder, which will typically make shit smoothies.
Fully agree with you though on the allergy warnings
I've never in my life been to a smoothie place or shake that primarily used powders.
It's always:
Smoothie King is a large chain that uses protein powders. But while they don't use Herbalife, they are at least adjacent to it.
I've never heard of them. Looks like the nearest one is 4 hours away from me, and there are zero in my home state or any state I like to visit.
Actually, a quick google seems to suggest Smoothie King primarily uses frozen fruit for their smoothies. They offer "nutritional add ins" that are protein powders. This is like Tropical Smoothie.
Maybe I wasn't clear about Herbalife. The ENTIRE smoothie is protein powder. Here is a typical herbalife smoothie. The entire smoothie. Others are the same with artificial flavors. Then one freeze-dried strawberry dropped in lets them say there's real fruit in it.
Here is a (genuinely random) sample from Smoothie King. A little protein added at the end, but primarily frozen fruit. This is reinforced by the fact that they sell fruit "smoothie bowls" for a comparable price. Herbalife has no fruit on hand to sell.
First time I tried one they mixed it wrong and it just tasted like chalk. All I knew was it was some kind of smoothie shop my wife took me to that a family friend of hers owned. Then I saw the price after tasting the chalk and pretending to like it. Never wanted it since