But, I do have a clear favourite so far.
One that IMHO combines and balances some really healthy power-foods with delicious taste and consistency of texture.
It is:
1 cup frozen Organic Canadian Wild Blueberries.
1 Organic Banana, peeled.
1 cup (compressed) Organic Kale.
1/8 cup Cranberry Juice.
This is what it looks like:
Mostly it tastes of blueberries with a tiny hint of banana and kale. For which I'm grateful because I'm not the biggest fan of kale, nor anything cabbage-related to be truthful.
But this tastes really good.
Not just 'kale smoothie' good, but actually good.
The nutrients from blueberries and kale go without extolling (everyone knows they're super foods), but the banana is only there to add some natural sweetening, and the cranberry juice is really only there to help lubricate the blending of it.
As powerful as my Ninja Ultima blender is, it still can't just blend a bunch of frozen fruit that doesn't want to 'fall' into the blades because it's so sticky and solid. So a touch of cranberry juice or almond milk (or even water if you like) is good to help things along.
Anyway, this stuff is really good. And I'm starting to come around to the whole smoothie thing. I mean, unlike juicing, smoothies are still whole food, and you lose zero nutrients by consuming them this way.
I've thought a lot about it. The only real difference that I can come up with (and I suppose this could be perceived as negative) is that you lose out on the chemical digestion which occurs in the mouth upon chewing. I seem to remember that there are a lot of enzymes in saliva that help with a 'primary' digestion occurring while still in the mouth, and which makes the 'secondary' digestion in the stomach that much easier.
So, I suppose it might be a little harder on the stomach to eat/drink a smoothie, rather than chew the ingredients?
I dunno?
I think that that is still pretty negligible, and that the positive aspects of consuming fruit and vegetable smoothies still outweigh the negative.
Besides... they're fun. And super good.
