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Smooth As Silk—and Way, Way Healthy

The following is a post sponsored by Silk. For our sponsored post policy, click here.

Okay, I’m getting a touch spoiled. First, I got to go to Minneapolis to get the behind-the-scenes scoop on General Mills, and last week I got to go to another one of my favorite places—Colorado—to check out one of my favorite brands: Silk. And I am so ecstatic to announce that we are an official blog ambassador for them—woot! In the coming months, we’ll have many more goodies to share with you about Silk, but for now, I want to dish on my trip. Oh, it was a good trip!

silk-bloggers

I’ve been drinking Silk for YEARS. In college, I drank a ton of Silk Vanilla Soymilk, and since then I’ve fallen in love with the brand’s Almondmilk and Coconutmilk. In fact, every time I make a smoothie (which is, like, daily—addict, here!), Silk goes in. So I knew it was already a product that I loved, and I knew it was healthy, but, gosh, I learned so much more about it.

We began our Silk Immersion trip by meeting a few of the people behind Silk, along with a little bit more about the company and its products. Owned by WhiteWave Foods, here are a few fun facts that kinda blew my mind:

  • Silk dairy-free milks use 77 percent less water and create 47 percent fewer greenhouse gases when made, as compared to cow’s milk.
  • All Silk products are non-GMO, gluten-free and all-natural.
  • Silk’s milks are all as nutritious, if not more so, than cow’s milk.
  • They make iced coffee. And it’s amazing, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

After learning all this info, all of us bloggers went for a hike. Say hello to (from left): Run Eat Repeat (love my fellow redhead), Carrots ‘N’ Cake (ya’ll know Tina!), Oatmeal After Spinning (my new BFF who has the cutest nails), Rebecca Scritchfield (an RD who knows her stuff—and has the cutest daughter), Cook Like a Dad (our token male who is bringing healthy cooking to dads everywhere), Skinny Mom (possibly the sweetest person ever), me and Sharon Palmer (brilliant and coined the term “plant-powered,” people). Now how good looking is this group? Don’t worry; we have our sunscreen on.

silk-bloggers-hike-group

Hiking in Colorado is one of my favorite things EVER. So I happily chatted with the other bloggers and the kind Silk peeps and gazed at the gorgeous scenery.

silk-hike-trail

This is seriously like heaven for me.

silk-hike-field

After about an hour on the trail, we headed back to the van.

silk-hike

And tried some Mocha Iced Latte. With as much caffeine as a cup of coffee and 100 calories in a one-cup serving, it was the perfect sweet end to a workout. (And maybe my new obsession—especially when diluted down with a little extra black coffee to cut the sweetness if I’m having it as an almost everyday treat. Or, maybe in smoothies. Oh, the possibilities.)

silk-latte

After cleaning up, the Silk team took us bloggers out for dinner to a heck-of-a tasty spot, but I’ll make you wait to read about all my eats on—cue maniacal laughter—Fit Bottomed Eats soon!

That next morning, we got up nice and early for a little yoga. Silk has a yoga instructor on staff (um, awesome), and she was just lovely. Kinda goofy, full of energy and yet calming at the same time, she knew her stuff. I told her about my stress fracture in my foot, and she was amazing at helping me work around it. (And, seriously, I was so happy to do some kind of yoga again—it’s been a month-plus!)

silk-yoga

After the yoga, we were all super zenned out and ready for the rest of the day, which included a few more meetings, lunch in the WhiteWave cafeteria (organic salad bar…yes!), educational sessions and maybe my favorite part of the whole trip: a smoothie-making competition.

silk-smoothie-cup

They gave us a random number (I was five), laid a ton of ingredients out for us to play with…

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(How amazing would it be to have all THIS at the ready every day for smoothies? Smoothie heaven.)

silk-smoothie-ingredients

And then we got to creating! I mixed some kale, spinach, banana, cherries, Silk Coconutmilk, cinnamon and vanilla extract together for mine.

silk-smoothie-blender-before

A quick blend-a-roo…

silk-smoothie-blender

Turned out a little brownish…but that’s okay.

silk-smoothie-mine

‘Cause I ended up taking third place in our highly scientific and objective competition! (We put our heads down on the table and voted anonymously—took me back to my Heads-Up-Seven-Up days.) I’m not sure how I placed that high; they were seriously all so tasty. And pouring them in the little taster cups was really fun. I kinda geeked out over the whole thing.

silk-smoothie-making

After our intensely delicious smoothie competition, I had a full belly, and we had another quick meeting, good-byes (seriously, one of the best parts of these trips is just meeting new people who are passionate about making the world a healthier place, and I can honestly say that’s true of all of the Silk people I met and the other bloggers), and it was off to the airport. There was bad weather, so I did get stuck in Denver and not make it back home until 1 a.m. BUT, I got to see this.

plane-mountains

Man, I love the mountains. The delay might have been worth it. The trip definitely was. Thanks, Silk!

Do you have a favorite Silk product? Anything you’d like us to find out from them? Let me know! —Jenn

FTC disclosure: We often receive products from companies to review. All thoughts and opinions are always entirely our own. Unless otherwise stated, we have received no compensation for our review and the content is purely editorial. Affiliate links may be included. If you purchase something through one of those links we may receive a small commission. Thanks for your support!