Ann Curry Pedals 'People-Powered Blender' to 'Save the Environment!'

May 17th, 2007 5:20 PM

On this morning's Today show NBC's Ann Curry revealed her green-streak as she pedaled her way on a "people-powered blender" to save the environment. Appearing with the co-founder of Ben&Jerry's Ice Cream, Jerry Greenfield, Curry gushed over the company's liberal causes and even mounted a stationary bike to blend smoothies and boasted: "You see, you can save the environment! It is possible!"

Video (1:24): Real (2.32 MB) or Windows (2.65 MB), plus MP3 (1.24 MB).

The following is the full segment as it occurred in the 9am half-hour of the May 17th Today show:

Ann Curry: "This morning in Today's Kitchen smoothies gone wild. Everyday this week we've been taking you around the world on our amazing animal adventures. To commemorate our epic journeys our friends at Ben and Jerry's have created, how cool is this, some original smoothie flavors inspired by Today Goes Wild. And joining us now to share those recipes with us, is the one and only Jerry Greenfield, the co-founder of Ben and Jerry's. Hey Jerry, pleasure just to have you here."

Jerry Greenfield: "Good morning!"

Curry: "Such a pleasure, We're so excited."

Matt Lauer: "Nice to see you."

Al Roker: "Good to see you."

Curry: "And you're, you're, it's just very cool to have a guy who's as cool as you, given all that you're trying to do in the world, to do this for us. So what have you done? You've got a lot of yummy things here."

Greenfield: "Yeah well we have customized flavors to highlight all the different trips you guys made."

Curry: "Right."

Greenfield: "And these are special. They're made with ingredients that are sourced from the areas where you guys went to and there are some other ingredients that help add color."

Curry: "Okay so I went to Borneo and did a story on orangutans so what about that inspired this drink you're about to make?"

Greenfield: "Well we have Ann's Bananas, here. So this is-"

Curry: "Thank you very much."

Lauer: "We say that all the time-"

Curry: "I was, I did begin this interview saying nice things about you but I think I'll take them all back now."

Greenfield: "So what we have is some pineapple juice."

Curry: "Yes!"

Greenfield: "Which I'm gonna put in. We have orange juice. We have roasted sweet potatoes-"

Lauer: "That's interesting."

Curry: "That's unusual. Bananas obviously."

Greenfield: "Bananas you can put in and here we have the special ingredient. Some crystallized ginger plus some curry powder."

Curry: "Seasoned with curry! What is this?"

Greenfield: "That is some raw sugar that we're gonna put in."

Curry: "Yum!"

Greenfield: "So we are gonna blend this up."

Curry: "Okay."

Greenfield: "We're gonna have you do this on the people-powered blender bike."

Curry, getting on stationary bike: "Okay so that's what I was trying to talk about earlier. You really care and have, for years, cared about global warming, concerned about being global, about global warming."

Greenfield: "So you're just gonna do a little bit of pedaling."

Curry: "Okay, how fast do I have to go?"

Greenfield: "Oh, I don't know. Let me shake this up a little."

Curry: "Yikes! Okay, okay may be it's the ice."

Greenfield: "I think it's the ice."

Curry: "I think I have to go faster. I think you need Lance Armstrong for this."

Roker: "Doesn't seem to be catching."

Greenfield: "It doesn't seem to be catching."

Lauer: "Well we just so happen to have a blended one right here, Jerry."

Greenfield: "Ann, how about if you just keep."

Roker: "Unbelievable!"

Greenfield: "You just keep pedaling."

Curry: "I'm sure. Okay I'm not going to give up on this but by the way we should talk about this."

Lauer: "Yeah that's gonna make a smoothie."

Roker: "Yeah it's only, it's only an hour show, Ann."

Curry: "Okay, okay. But you do, you have sort of the global climate change college, haven't you?"

Greenfield: "We do. We have a college where we take some young people who are passionate about the issue and we work with WWF, the World Wildlife for nature Fund and some polar explorers. Do you think we can give up on this one, Ann?"

Curry: "I'm not gonna give up. No I'm not gonna give up. You go ahead, you go work with Matt, now."

Lauer: "Jerry I went to Hawaii and you've got one here that, it's called Matt's Whale of A Smoothie. We've got Kona coffee, we've got Kona ice cubes, coconut, toasted coconut and raw sugar, right?"

Greenfield: "We're gonna put it all in."

Lauer: "Okay."

Greenfield: "We've got the coffee that we made ahead of time so it's not hot, it's cool."

Lauer: "Okay."

Greenfield: "We've got the coconut milk and the Kona coffee ice cubes."

Lauer: "Those are great!"

Greenfield: "Now I'll tell ya one of the things that's great is all these smoothies are custom made for you guys but at all the Ben and Jerry shops you can get a custom smoothie, any time."

[Crowd cheers as Ann finally gets people-powered blender to work.]

Curry: "You see, you can save the environment! It is possible!"

Roker: "And you can save a segment too!"

Greenfield: "How did you do that, Ann?"

Curry: "Oh it's a miracle!"

Lauer: "Oh by the way this is delicious. Alright, Al what's yours?"

Greenfield: "Al's Polar Pals. This is gonna be a completely white smoothie to commemorate the white carnivore and the white environment. So we have some white peaches."

Roker: "Frozen."

Greenfield: "We have some honey."

Roker: "Yes."

Greenfield: "Just stick your finger in there. That's the way we do it in the kitchen. We have some apple juice and some crystallized honey. We're gonna put it on here. Oh yeah!"

Roker: "Yeah!"

Lauer: "Al, by the way the cups are made of corn."

Roker: "Yes!"

Lauer: "Isn't that cool? So you can actually eat those if you had to."

Curry: "Hey! No, but they're biodegradable. That's so cool!"

Greenfield: "They're biodegradable. They don't use any petroleum products which is really great for the environment."

Curry: "Yeah. Hey!"

Lauer: "Jerry, thanks. Thanks for being such a good sport."

Greenfield: "Ann you did an incredible job!"

Roker: "Great job!"

Curry: "There you go! We've all gone bananas."

Greenfield: "To your health guys!"

Curry: "Anyway it was really fun. We've got some great ideas and this is melting but we're gonna handle it anyway. Thanks so much for being here. Jerry Greenfield."