Over the month of June I tried 21 smoothies. Of those, about half were good enough to be considered “keepers” and a few more could use some tweaking and the rest shall never grace my kitchen again.
Pictured in the blender are the ingredients for Harper’s Favourite — one I would do again but not in my top five.
I learned more than a few things along the way but the basic rule, as far as I am concerned, is that every smoothie should include some fruit, some yogurt and/or milk, and either chia seeds (my first choice), flax seeds, or oatmeal. Beyond that, the ingredients are flexible. Without these ingredients, they don’t taste as good and don’t keep my hunger at bay long enough.
Other discoveries:
- I found that dried fruit is a stupid thing to add to a smoothie — at least with my wimpy little blender.
- nut butters are great additions that can hide anything remotely healthy from hesitant smoothie drinkers.
- I discovered that I really don’t like cherry juice or pomegranate juice.
- ground chia seeds are some kind of miracle food and are my default protein/nutrient additive
- of all the milks I tried, the almond milk provided the best blend without overpowering flavour
- spinach was surprisingly easy to blend in but kale was nearly imposible to ignore.
Oh, and one more thing: less is better. The more ingredients I had to gather and add, the less likely it was to be a “winner.”
What were the winners? Peach-Raspberry, Carrot-Pineapple and Coffee-Banana are all recipes I will be repeating. The best of the green smoothies was the Green Monster; it was simple and tasted great and I almost always have all the ingredients on hand. Rounding out the top five was too tough to call — both the Almond-Banana-Flaxseed and the Lemon-Orange-Citrus will be back on my menu in the coming weeks.
Close but not in the top five running were Harper’s Favorite, Vanilla Chai Nana, Pineapple-Mango and the Immune Boosting Berry-Spinach (with blueberry juice instead of pomegranate). I don’t always have the ingredients these ones call for, so they may not be in the running as often but they are definitely keepers. The Straight-A and the Mango-Ginger were, once I adjusted them, also pretty tasty; the rest ranged from okay to terrible and needed significant variation to be in my winner list.
Overall, the experiment was a success. My two primary goals were (1) to expand my smoothie repertoire and (2) to do so with smoothies that would keep me full enough to keep me from spending extra money (and ingesting empty calories) at coffee break. I would certainly say I managed both of those goals. The unexpected bonus was the weight loss, something I hope will continue, albeit slower, over the next few months as I continue to keep smoothies as a breakfast staple.
Finally, I want to thank everyone who offered comments, feedback, and suggestions along the way!