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Smoothies - the Easy Breakfast

Spring is just around the corner which means time to switch my breakfast habit. I take full advantage of the fruits that are coming back in to season. Well, I also use frozen fruit to fill in the gaps. Frozen fruit is actually good for you. Since it's frozen at its peak, it retains all the nutrients that fruit is famous for.

It's important to get enough fruits and veggies for your health and well-being. Fruit adds fiber, helps prevent some cancers, and is great for heart health. If you have high blood pressure, it's an easy way to get enough potassium into your diet as well. Choosing whole fruit over fruit juice saves a ton of calories and preserves all the fiber. One of the reasons juice is so high in calories is that by removing the natural fiber, you have to use many more pieces of fruit to get a single cup of juice. This also makes it high in sugars as well.

With our busy lives is can be difficult to always get 9 - 12 servings of fruits and veggies. Your morning smoothie let's you start out ahead of the game. You can even sneak a serving or two of veggies without anyone else noticing. It's a great way to get greens into a veggie hating child. Just give them funny names like Shrek smoothie or alien milkshake and they will gobble them down even if they are green! You can use different colors of glass to give the illusion of a different color as well. The Noritake Breeze comes in green, blue, amber, pink, red as well as clear, so use them to your advantage.

You can use any blender, though having a high powered one like a Vita-Mix allows you to add in larger chunks with peels, seeds, and all. That's great for peeled oranges (no skin), whole lemons (including the skin), apples, and pomegranate seeds. If you use a regular blender, just cut things into smaller pieces, peel when necessary, and remove all seeds.

If you want to add in veggies, start in easy with mild tasting lettuce or spinach. The move on to adding a small chunk of cabbage. The cabbage taste is taken away by strong fruit like pineapple or even strawberries. One of the best things about cabbage is you can even get red cabbage which adds a beautiful pink color to your smoothie.

There's nothing better than starting the day sitting on my deck with a Noritake Breeze goblet filled with a mango, blueberry, spinach smoothie.

Author: Kathy Hester

Posted: Thursday 4th March 2010, 6:22 AM




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