Off to a Great Start! (Breakfast Smoothies)

Alright, day one is in the books, not without a few temptations, however.  For breakfast, I made a blueberry spinach smoothie.  I know that spinach in a smoothie sounds like a bad idea, but actually the flavor of the spinach is pretty delicate, easily masked by the stronger flavors of pretty much any fruit that it's paired with.  I try to have either a smoothie or a bowl of whole grain, high fiber hot cereal (with fruit & a little honey) every day.  I find that the fiber in both of these helps to get me to lunch without searching the office kitchen for something else to snack on.

  My smoothie recipe is really basic & pretty easy to switch fruits in or out, depending on availability and personal taste.  The easiest thing to do is just pick up a couple of bags of frozen fruit when you're grocery shopping & just keep them in the freezer.  If I use milk, I try to use whole milk that is raw or organic milk that's pasteurized at a low temperature (Kalona Super Natural is the only organic milk brand that I know of that does low temp. pasteurization).  Vitamins are fat soluble, so if you use skim milk, there are far less vitamins than whole milk.  I know that there are plenty of people who would argue that whole milk is full of fat, but I don't really eat much junk food (if any) on a regular basis, so I justify my whole milk as my "junk food."  If you're going to use honey in your smoothies, or at all for that matter, make sure that it's raw, unfiltered and local, like within 100 miles of your home.  Honey has some great anti seasonal allergy properties since real local honey contains small amounts of pollen in it, sort of the same concept as a vaccine (if you ingest small amounts of the allergen material, your body builds up an immunity to it).  Smoothies take less than 5 mins to make, so they're a great make & go breakfast for days that I'm running late.

Basic Smoothie Recipe

1 cup spinach (or a decent sized handful)
1 cup frozen fruit (if you use strawberries or something with really big chunks, I suggest microwaving them for about 25 seconds to thaw them just a little)
3/4 cup liquid (milk, soy milk, almond milk, fruit juice, just something to get the frozen stuff moving)
1-2 teaspoons raw unfiltered local honey (or more to taste)
1/3 cup almonds (optional)
1 teaspoon cinnamon or freshly grated ginger (optional, depending on the fruit blend)

Throw all the ingredients into a food processor, blender, or blend with a stick blender until smooth and blended (you shouldn't be able to see big pieces of spinach).  Pour into a travel mug & run out the door.

Before:  Frozen blueberries, spinach, honey & milk

After:  Smoothie goodness