Healthy Living Part 2: Smoothie Revolution

Many friends have asked about my smoothie recipes and their content. I will begin posting my recipes on here along with the pics. I never thought I could drink the 'green' smoothies. They look disgusting and in my mind they had to taste terrible if they looked that bad. I could not have been more ill-informed.

Over the Christmas break my sister-in-law noted their great health benefits and that the taste was good regardless of the color. My wife then began discussing buying a blender and as we looked at prices we found a very good Ninja Blender for a super great price and thus my blending began.

I will say that most of my first recipes came from a website: http://www.simplegreensmoothies.com/. You can sign up for a 30 day challenge and they send you new recipes each Thursday. I have only utilized a couple of the recipes but they all sound great. With the help of this website and in discussion with my sister-in-law and others I have crafted my own smoothie recipes. Since carb count is a major issue for me I try to make sure that the count is close what a meal replacement shake should be and that it is full of nutrients.

Here is the basic recipe I use for all of my current smoothies:

2 cups of greens (spinach/Kale/etc.)
2 cups of liquid (water/coconut water)
additions (chia seeds/flax seeds/supplemental powders)

Blend these items for 30-45 second on high in blender

Then add:
2 cups of fruit
sweetener, if desired
Ice, as desired

This was the basic recipe that I have augmented and changed. Here is the recipe for my smoothie for this week:

1 cup Spinach
1 cup Kale
1 tbsp Chia Seed
1 tbsp Flax Seed
1 scoop Fruit and Greens Powder Mix
1 cup water
1 cup coconut water

Blend these items for 30-45 seconds

Then added:
2 - Blood Oranges
2 - Cara Cara Oranges
2 - Kiwis
1 Cup Frozen Mangos
1 tbsp Agave sweetener

Blend all items for 30-45 seconds

Then added 3 cups of ice and blended again for 30-45 seconds.

Here is the nutritional information:

Ingredient	Amount	Calories	Fat (g)	Carb (g)	Protein (g)	Fiber (g)	Potassium (mg)
Coconut water (Vitacoco)	1 cup	45	0	11	0	0	470
Kale (Organic Girl)	1 cup	7	0	1.5	1	1	80
Spinach (Dole Fresh)	1 cup	7	0	1	0.75	0.75	120
Chia Seed	1 tbsp	60	4	5	2	3	64
Flax Seed	1 tbsp	50	4	4	2	4	N/A
Fruit & Green Powder	1 scoop	65	0.5	8	5	2.5	170
Kiwi	2	100	1	24	2	4	N/A
Frozen Mango (Dole)	1 cup	90	0.5	21	1	2	240
Blood Orange	2	140	0	36	2	6	464
Cara Cara Orange	2	160	0	38	2	6	500
Agave	1 tbsp	60	0	16	0	0	N/A
	TOTALS	784	10	165.5	17.75	29.25	2108
Each Pint Jar (incl. 3 c ice)	Totals/5	156.8	2	33.1	3.55	5.85	421.6

Here is some resources as to the health benefits of the ingredients above:
Chia Seeds
Flax Seeds
Kale
Spinach
Coconut Water
Kiwi
Mango
Blood Orange
Cara Cara Orange
Agave

As I add new ingredients to my smoothies I will try to do something similar as the analysis above.

Enjoy.  One of the biggest issues related to Smoothies is the blender itself. Make sure you get a good blender that does a good job or you can get disappointed as your ingredients are not well blended.

Happy Blending...

jamie