Smoothies?

Since moving to the NoVa/DC area and working from home, I've started putting on weight and it annoys me. Boyfriend and I are starting to eat healthier to combat the bulge and have decided to do smoothies for breakfast (he has a magic bullet blender, the name makes me giggle).

Today is day four of smoothies for breakfast and the made up recipe I did came out weird and pudding-like in consistency so I figured I'd ask for people's favorite healthy smoothie recipes!

Well smoothies can be healthy or very unhealthy depending on what you put in them really. I don't do them much, but when I do I put ice cubes, some protein powder, almond milk and frozen fruit. You can add spinach or kale for extra nutrients too (mine doesn't blend well enough for that), and chia or other kinds of seeds.

But yeah, they don't fill me up much so I don't do them much, lol.

I make little packs and stick them in the freezer. Usually something like this:

1/3c peaches
1/2c mixed berries
1/2c kale

Blend with 1.5-2c water. I like really watered down smoothies, personally.

My smoothies aren't as tasty as others, and probably won't mix well in a bullet. I use whole milk organic kefir, a handful of almonds, scoop of chia seeds, scoop of hemp seeds, Tablespoon scoop of coconut oil and frozen (blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, cranberry) whatever I have and in any combination. Then I thin it with coconut or almond milk or regular organic whole if I have it. It takes a pretty heavy duty blender to get those nuts chopped to smoothie status or it's chunky which most don't seem to like. It's not a real sweet smoothie, which is my goal, but some don't really like it.

Aiming for healthier smoothies to help cut down on fatty snack foods and whatnot.

This morning's was good but I think I put too much banana in it.

1/2 c mixed frozen berries
1 tbs protein
1 ts flax seeds
1 whole banana
~1 c coconut milk

Turned out tasty but again, weird pudding-like consistency. The smoothies the rest of this week have had kale in them but we got the wrong kind of frozen kale so the stringy stems are in there and I was too lazy to pick them out this morning. Plan is to get fresh kale/spinach for next week.

The nice thing is that if I don't finish my morning smoothie, I can have the rest for a snack later!

I don't know if the bullet would be able to handle nuts for smoothies though the concept is interesting. Could go for something like almond butter which is pre-ground and see if that works. I found three weeks of smoothie recipes plus shopping lists so we're going to try following those starting Monday!

If they are too thick, cut them with more liquid!

I have a smoothie almost every morning. Only time I shake it up is for the boyfriend's homemade granola, which is also delish. I've been working out hard these days so I need a power drink in the mornings. I hate eating in the morning before work, LOL.

Lately, my regular smoothie involves:

• about 1/2 cup frozen fruit (I change varieties)
• a whole banana
• squirt of aloe vera gel
• 1/4 cup of whey protein isolate
• tablespoon each of chia seed, hemp seed and spirulina
• two spoonfuls of nonfat yogurt or plain kefir
• a handful of either spinach or kale (BF and I switch it up regularly for his sandwiches & my smoothies)
• and to liquify it, mostly organic skim milk and sometimes a dash of fruit juice if we have some handy.

I switch up ingredients every so often too, but that's my basic everyday smoothie. I have one of these blenders, so the smoothie cups are nice and big which keeps me going until lunch.

I added more liquid but it seemed to get absorbed. I wasn't too bothered by it, I'll finish the little bit left as a snack later. The protein was a first today since we just bought it yesterday and that definitely helped fill me up! I like to think that the flax will give me a shiny coat :rofl1:

Where do you guys get your additives like chia seeds and spirulina? We got our protein from Trader Joes and they probably have other things but I wasn't there to check it out when bf picked up the protein. Does anyone else use flax but in ground form? Aloe gel, I keep thinking of the stuff I have for my sunburns but I doubt that's edible, suggests for that?

Yay smoothies!

I just go to the vitaminshoppe and use raw eggs for a cheaper and better protein I figured I wouldn't even bother adding that in my initial post, most don't want it

I get all of my smoothie additive stuff from Bulk Barn. Bulk Barn is a magical store that has a ton of stuff in bulk, including a bunch of natural health products like whey protein, spirulina, chia seed, etc so I can buy it all at a better price than health food stores. They also have packaged/bottled stuff like the aloe vera gel.

But it's Canadian only, so I'm not much help.

Smoothie everyday for me! A little yogurt, frozen blueberries , almond milk and protein powder! Can't get my day gong without it!

I thought this was going to be a thread about smooth collies.


Carry on.

I do a smoothie every morning!

• 8oz unsweetened almond milk
• 1 scoop Chocolate Juice Plus+ Complete
• 1 teaspoon chia seeds (Bob's Red Mill brand)
• 1 tablespoon-ish of smooth natural peanut butter

I can mix all that up with just a blender bottle I picked up at Walgreen's. If I time to haul out my blender, I'll add in a whole banana, some ice cubes and maybe some frozen spinach if I have some on hand. This keeps me going for hours and often times I'll make up another one as a pre-workout before running or hiking.

Today's smoothie:

1 peeled apple
1 handful kale
1 banana
1 tsp Very Green
2 tbs Protein
8 oz coconut water

Pretty good, I expected it to be greener but I guess since the Very Green isn't straight spirulina (couldn't find it at TJ's) it's more of a mint green. This is enough for two people.

My smoothies generally consist of
- Unsweetened Almond or Soy Milk
- Fresh Spinach
- 1 pitted date (Natural sweetener + fibre)
- Frozen berries (I mix it up, blueberries mix the best for me though)

I haven't done smoothies in a while, but when I did I followed Alton Brown's method and adapted from there based on what I had on hand.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/buff-smoothie-recipe.html

The only consistent difference I did was that I used almond milk instead of soy milk. I just personally don't care for soy milk. There were also a few times that I would sub in a single serving of yogurt, instead.

For the juice, I usually just got whatever bottle of red/purple fruit juice was on sale. Oftentimes it was a juice blend.

I would swap around the different fruits, too. I almost always had a banana in there, but the rest I just tried different combinations/ratios however I fancied on a given night. All I had to do was measure it out by weight. (That way, if I hit upon something I really liked, I might know what I did to write it down and reproduce it another day.)

Hope that helps a little.

Thanks for all of the ideas! Right now I'm following a 3 week smoothie kick that I found with shopping list and recipes. We'll see how it goes! I'm pretty sure I'll be improvising after those 3 week since I'll have a bunch of ideas by then!

The apples and kale today didn't get as smooth as I would like so I ended up adding some yogurt to smooth it out. Much better! I think freezing the banana and apple may help with that so I'll prep those tonight!