I’m starting to share my kids’ opinion that nothing green can be especially delicious. Image: Flickr/YoAmes
I am holding in my hands the results of this week’s puzzle — no, not a collection of paper slips, but the smoothie ingredients themselves, blended together into what may or may not be actual deliciousness. If you have no idea whatsoever what I’m talking about, here’s a puzzle recap:
In order to call my evening treat a smoothie (which is healthy) rather than a milkshake (which is not), healthy things like banana and protein powder and yoghurt must outweigh delicious things like ice cream and chocolate sauce. How can I combine the ingredients below to maximize deliciousness points of a 16oz glass while remaining able to term the concoction a smoothie, by volume?
Ingredients:
1. Chocolate sauce: 10 points of deliciousness for first ounce, and half again for each subsequent ounce.
2. Wheat grass: 10 points of health per ounce. Must be counterbalanced by at least double the volume of ice cream.
3. Banana: 5 points of health per ounce.
4. Peanut butter: 4 points health, 2 points deliciousness per ounce.
5. Raw egg: despite chance for egregious GI disease, 6 points of health per ounce, max 2 ounces.
6. Protein powder: 7 points of health per ounce, max of two.
7. Ice cream: 6 points of deliciousness per ounce.
8. Sugary vanilla yoghurt: 2 points health, 3 points deliciousness per ounce.
9. Honey: 8 points of deliciousness per ounce. After two ounces, decreases by half again for each subsequent ounce.
10. Milk: 3 points health, 1 point deliciousness per ounce.
And what I’m now holding in my hands contains the following, as many people who submitted correct answers this week discerned:
1 oz chocolate sauce, 4 oz wheat grass, 1 oz raw egg (or banana), 2 oz protein powder, 8 oz ice cream.
This concoction yields 58 points of deliciousness and 60 points of health — and, I found, requires significant ice cream melting in order to succumb to blending. It’s also a little heavy on the wheat grass. (Wow-ee! It’s like eating a bale of alfalfa. Anyway.)
The winner of this week’s $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate is…Gamma! Gamma also points out that: “If we remove the integer constraint, then: 1 oz. chocolate, 4.1 oz wheat grass, 0.7 oz raw egg, 2 oz protein powder, and 8.2 oz ice cream gives exactly 59.2 points of deliciousness and 59.2 points of health–removing simply a pinch of chocolate and replacing with a pinch of raw egg will make this a smoothie rather than a milkshake.”
Indeed.
The rest of us can use the code GEEKDAD81AD to get $10 off a $50 order at ThinkGeek.
Don’t forget to tune in Monday when Judd adds another installment of POTW!
