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MAKING HEALTHY SMOOTHIE REICPES

MAKING HEALTHY SMOOTHIE REICPES

Making Healthy Smoothie Recipes. An easy to follow guide for creating your own healthy smoothie recipes. All about smoothies. What makes a smoothie healthy?

Smoothies…are they really good for you? Swapping a sugar-laden breakfast for a morning smoothie is a great idea….or not!  A green smoothie or health shake can be one of the healthiest breakfasts on the Planet.  If you mix it up right!

1. BLENDING A HEATLHY SMOOTHIE

Fresh greens should dominate a healthy smoothie or green shake.  Add low or medium sugar fruits in moderation, for the sake of taste. Like V8 Fusion, all you will taste is the fruit. Adding living greens to a smoothie or health shake in their natural state, keeps the vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, and chlorophyll Intact.  This is the best reason for ditching sugary breakfasts in favor of a health shake or smoothie.  Made right, a health shake or smoothie is an excellent way to get more fruit and vegetables into your diet, especially if you are on the go.

2. EASE INTO IT THEN EXPERIMENT

If you aren’t used to green shakes…build-up from milder to stronger greens.  Adding lettuce to your smoothie may seem weird at first, but I promise, all you will taste is the fruit while reaping the benefits of the fresh greens.  Start with any and all kinds of lettuce in your green shakes or smoothies. Once you are used to lettuce, move on to spinach, then conquer kale.  After you become a seasoned green smoothie drinker try other greens like Bok Choy, tender beet tops, Swiss chard, young collard greens or dandelion greens which are great for you but bitter.

In addition to healthy greens, other vegetables that work well in green shakes are cucumbers, celery, beets, carrots, and avocados [loaded with healthy fat and calories so just use one-fourth],  Your goal is to make a healthy green shake verses a sugar laden smoothie.  Consider using organic greens and vegetables. Blending produce concentrates the pesticide residues Into your drink.

Experiment with different herbs and spices.  Ground cinnamon, fresh ginger, pumpkin pie spice, raw cacao powder [not alkaline-processed cocoa], vanilla beans or pure vanilla extract, all add great flavor with virtually no calories.  Herbs like fennel, cilantro, and mint are also nice additions.

3. ADD LOW TO MEDIUM SUGAR FRUIT IN MODERATION

Avoid fruits containing a lot of natural sugar like ripe bananas, cherries, and mejool dates.  High carbohydrate fruits, with a high  Glycemic index or GI, contain a lot of natural sugar. Even though it’s natural, it’s still sugar.  Mother Nature intended us to chew our fruit, allowing it to mix with saliva and enter the bloodstream slowly. Blending fruit allows its natural sugar to enter your bloodstream more quickly which can spike your blood sugar.  Blood sugar spikes, cause the body to produce insulin to move the sugar out of the bloodstream and store it as fat.  After this process is complete, you experience a “crash” in energy. Over time,  constantly spiking blood sugar can lead to insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes.  This defeats the whole point of having a health shake or smoothie instead of a sugary breakfast!

4. ADDING HEALTHY FAT, PROTEIN, AND FIBER

Another way to prevent the rush-crash cycle caused by too much sugar is to make sure your health shake or smoothie is a balanced meal containing  complex carbohydrates, in the form of fruits and vegetables, plus protein and healthy fat.  A balanced diet is based on about 40% complex carbohydrates, 30% plant-based protein, and 30% healthy fat.  The easiest way to ensure this is to roughly maintain this balance in every meal. Add a good quality plant-based protein like Navitas Naturals Organic Hemp Protein or RAW Beyond Organic Protein with sprouted seeds and grains plus probiotics. Adding additional fiber also helps offset blood sugar spikes. Super seeds like chia, hemp, or ground flax, add fiber plus healthy fat.  Check-out RAW Fiber by Garden of Life, it contains super seeds and probiotics.

 5. CHOOSE A LIQUID MEDIUM

To keep the smoothie or green shake from being too thick use a nut milk like unsweetened coconut or almond milk, fresh cashew or macadamia nut milk. Coconut water will add electrolytes but also more natural sugar.  You can also use green tea [caffeine], herbal tea or green rooibos tea [many of the benefits of green tea without the caffeine].  Avoid using fruit juice, it contains too much natural sugar. To reap the many health benefits of a morning green shake or smoothie, avoid blending a sugar-bomb full of pesticide residue. See the Healthy Smoothie & Green Shake Guidelines below.

MAKING HEALTHY SMOOTHIE RECIPES GUIDELINES

MAKE SMOOTHIES OR HEALTH SHAKES A COMPLETE MEAL SO YOU DON’T SPIKE YOUR BLOOD SUGAR

Smoothies should contain all of the food categories including:

1. PROTEIN—helps offset the natural sugar in fruit
2. HEALTHY FAT—helps offset natural sugar in fruit, limit to 1T
3. COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES—in the from of fruits and vegetables. Try to work-up to having more vegetables than fruit in your shakes. Start with milder greens, like all types of lettuce then move on to spinach, then kale. Even though fruit contains natural sugar, it is still sugar. When you blend fruit, the natural sugar in it enters your bloodstream more quickly.

NOTE: Smoothies aren’t recommended for people with high blood sugar, insulin resistance, diabetes type 1 & 2, or fatty liver. Please, discuss adding smoothies to your diet with your primary health care practitioner.

 SMOOTHIE & SHAKE GUIDELINE

FRUITS

Try to limit fruit to 1C or 1 piece. Use more, if shake isn’t sweet enough. Antioxidant rich, organic berries: blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries, and boysenberries are the best choice. Bananas will add a lot of sweetness. Organic apples, plums, pears, peaches, nectarines, kiwis [peeled], organic grapes, mangoes [peeled], and fresh pineapple all taste great in shakes. Fresh or frozen fruit works well and so does unsweetened, dried coconut. If using papayas, buy organic, they’re on top 10 GMO list.

VEGETABLES

Cucumbers are a mellow addition. Carrots will make your shake sweeter. Raw beets are a healthy addition, no need to peel, just scrub and quarter. If you don’t have a high powered blender, you can grate then first. Avocados add healthy fat [limit 1/4 avocado]. For green shakes add lettuce, all kinds, celery leaves, spinach, kale, Swiss chard, collard greens, or bok choy leaves.  Tender tops of beet or turnip greens work well. Organic is best, some greens are heavily-sprayed crops.

PROTIEN

Since quinoa is a complete protein, you can use 1/2C cooked and cooled or sprouted quinoa. Or try a plant-based pea or hemp protein powder. Navitas Naturals Organic Hemp Protein with Omegas 3-6-9 and RAW Beyond Organic Protein with sprouted grains and probiotics are great.  If you cannot tolerate a plant-based protein try an unflavored, unsweetened whey protein like IsoNatural—Whey Protein Isolate by Allmax Nutrition. Avoid soy protein, soy is at the top of the list of GMO foods. Nuts and seeds also contain protein.

HEALTHY FAT

Nuts and seeds contain healthy fat.  All kinds of raw nuts are a great addition [limit to 1T].  You can also add 1T nut butter—almond, pecan, cashew, or walnut. As well as avocados [limit to 1/4]. Peanuts are actually a legume and on the Foods to Avoid List in Step 1. Seeds like raw pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds are healthy additions [limit to 2T].

LIQUID

Start with 1C of a liquid, add more if the shake is too thick.  Choose from unsweetened coconut or almond milk or fresh cashew or macadamia nut milk…1T raw nuts + 1C filtered water.  You can also use coconut water.  This will make your shake or smoothie much sweeter. Experiment with different flavors of herbal tea. Or add caffeine-free green rooibos tea for added health benefits.

SPICES

Fresh ginger [1 inch chunk, peeled], 1t pure vanilla extract, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, or pumpkin pie spice, chocolate lovers add 1T raw cacao powder [not alkaline-processed cocoa powder].

SWEETENERS

If you like a sweeter shake, try adding a medjool date [pitted], 2T organic raisins, 2-3 dried figs, or a dried prune.  Make sure they are sulphur free. You can also use all natural100% liquid or powdered Stevia, Lucuma powder, Yacon powder, lo han guo [Monk fuit] powder.

GREEN SMOOTHIES & HEALTH SHAKES

Shakes and smoothies are a good way to get extra fruit and vegetables into your diet and take them on the go. It’s a great way to start your day.

If you are new to green smoothies and health shakes, we recommend using a recipe.  Once you are a seasoned green shake drinker, use the guidelines on these page to create your own smoothies.

Putting vegetables in your smoothie may seem crazy! Feel free to leave out the “green stuff” and work-up to adding it.  Start with lettuce, then spinach, then kale…I promise, you won’t even taste it.  Just like V8 Fusion, all you’ll taste is the fruit.

SUPER CHARGE YOUR SMOOTHIES BY ADDING ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING

PROTEIN

• sprouted almonds
• sprouted quinoa
• sprouts, all kinds 

GREENS

• dandelion greens
• bok choy greens

SUPER FRUITS

• mangosteen
• acai powder
• acai puree
• baobab powder
• goji berries
• cranberries
• pomegranate
• maqui powder
• camu berry powder
• tart cherry powder
• elderberries
• mulberries
• gooseberries

SUPER SEEDS

• chia
• hemp
• flax, ground

SPICES

• fresh turmeric
• fresh fennel
• garlic cloves
• carob powder

HEALTHY FATS

• raw cacao nibs
• sacha inchi or savi seeds

SWEETENERS

• inulin [ prebiotic]
• d-ribose [energy]

 

LIVE PROBIOTICS

coconut water kefir

coconut milk kefir

kombucha

rejuvelac

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metatags: Making Healthy Smoothie Recipes. An easy to follow guide for creating your own healthy smoothie recipes. All about smoothies. What makes a smoothie healthy?