Smoothies are a great way to get some extra vegetables and fruit into your day. I’ve shared a few of my favourites on the blog (see here and here) before, but at the moment, I’m into adding lots of greens, or most recently beetroot to get my fix of antioxidants.
I prefer smoothies to juices because juicing removes a lot fibre from the fruit/vegetables. Fibre is great for helping keep you feeling fuller for longer, digestive health and also stabilising blood sugars.
As a part of the 30 Days of Wellness, try adding smoothies to your diet – they are a good breakfast, light lunch or recovery drink after a hard workout. It’s an easy way to get a good boost of health giving ingredients.
I prefer smoothies as a light lunch or workout recovery drink over breakfast – but that’s just me! I like to chew and savour something when I first get up in the morning – my current favourite is a quinoa granola that I made over Easter. Yum!
This weekend I decided to give beetroot a go in my smoothie for lunch. Beetroot is an amazing vegetable. It’s gorgeous red colour comes from an unique group of red pigments called the betalains. Betalains are responsible for the vegetable’s high antioxidant potency, thought to be useful in preventing chronic disease.
If you had a good blender, you could use beetroot raw in smoothies- but I cooked mine a little first as I’ve just got a little stick blender. Cook with it’s skin on so it doesn’t loose it’s colour – it’s easy to take the skin off later.
When combined with banana, blackberries and lemon the beetroot flavour is subtle and it’s quite a tasty combination. Here’s how:
Beetroot, Blackberry and Banana Smoothie
Ingredients
1 whole beetroot
1 banana
1/2 cup frozen blackberries
juice of 1 lemon
1 cup coconut water
1/4 cup berry yoghurt
Cook beetroot for around 5 minutes in boiling water. Peel and chop into small chunks. Place in a blender with remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth. Enjoy!
Nutrient Lineup
Beetroot – rich in betalains, a potent antioxidant. They also provide potassium and B group vitamins – particularly folate. It also contributes a small amount of iron and Vitamin C. Beetroot can also help to lower blood pressure and improve sports performance when taken in the right doses. Beetroot contains nitrate. This converts into nitrite in the body and then into nitric oxide, which has a two fold effect: it widens blood vessels to increasing blood flow; and it reduces the oxygen needed by muscles, so they work more efficiently.
Banana – an excellent source of potassium, vitamin B6 and fibre
Blackberries -a good source of vitamin C, folate and Vitamin K
Lemon – a valuable source vitamin C
Coconut water – made from young coconut, coconut water is high in potassium and is great for hydration
Berry yoghurt – I used the Dairy Collective yoghurt as it’s preservative free and contains probiotics. A good source of calcium and protein.
If you want to know how to create your own perfectly balanced smoothie blend, check out this article for some top tips.
What are your favourite smoothie combinations?
Ooh I love this idea. I usually have at least one smoothie a day, usually breakfast or morning tea. Typo has really cool cups that keep the drink cold.
I love vanilla protein powder, frozen mango, frozen banana, LSA and Greek yoghurt. Another favourite is vanilla protein, banana, oats and cinnamon.
Yum your smoothie mix sounds good. What protein power brand do you use? I added some to one of my smoothies and I didn’t like it!!
Sorry for all the comments but stalking you! lol!! I’m going to try the frozen mango smoothie in the morning! And also we buy our protein powder from bodybuilding.co.nz. The NurtraWhey, Jungle Banana is a really yummy flavour.
I love your comments so you don’t need to be sorry. Thanks for the protein powder tip – I’ll have to check it out.
I love smoothies and your recipe ideas! I have a juicer from my childhood that is still going strong but I tend not to use it as I want the benefit of the fibre, especially being gluten free now. But I love that machine because of it’s age and memories of using it with my mum as a kid! I also use a blending machine that is about 15 years old to make my smoothies – one of these days I’m going to burn out that poor little motor!
Thanks! Great to have those memories – I reckon some of the older versions of blenders etc are better than the modern ones too! I feel like an old person saying this but “they don’t make things like they used to! I love your photographs by the way
I’m using MRM Low carb protein at the moment but its not as good as International Protein Synergy 5 in vanilla. It’s the bomb and not too exy either.