Spinach smoothie

Today my smoothie has peanut butter with spinach and a banana.

It's different. All I taste is peanut butter, but it's still so green, which makes the whole experience odd.

I have no idea what it will do to my appetite, but I think it might limit it quite a bit.

Let's see ~545 Kcal - please note I was rushed this morning, and did not weigh it out, but I am pretty close most the time without weighing. And honestly, you might want to lower the peanut butter to 1 tablespoon. It's pretty overpowering. And add ice. It's very liquid.

2 cups of spinach ~ 15Kcal
2 tbsp of jiffy peanut butter ~ 190Kcal
1 frozen medium banana ~ 105Kcal
8 oz of coconut water ~ 45Kcal
1 cup/8 oz of greek vanilla yogurt ~ 180Kcal
1 tsp granulated splenda ~ 0Kcal
1tbsp cocoa powder ~ 10Kcal

I think I am going to skip peanut butter in the morning smoothies as a general rule.

I just can't make my brain be ok with green colored peanut butter flavored drinks.

I wasn't hungry after the smoothie yesterday, but it was just unsettling.

I used an old osterizer for a long time before investing in a refurbished vitamix. The Vitamix or similar blenders will break the cell wall down further, making the drink more easily digestible and smoother. All smoothies are great, though, as long as you drink them right down before they oxidize. Green smoothies are great. If you Google it, you'll find several sites devoted to the benefits of smoothies and full of recipes as well. Check out Green Smoothie Queen and Green Smoothie Girl, among others. I love the mild smoothie spinach makes and it is my fav, but it's a good idea to mix up your greens. This follows the natural pattern in nature, too. Grazing animals, left to their own devices, eat a variety of greens, not just one kind. Each green offers somewhat different elements to the diet. I use kale, mustard, chard, beet greens, and even Romaine lettuce and celery. Parsley is actually a great green for smoothies, very cleansing, if you can manage the texture--it won't smooth out in your regular blender nearly as well as spinach does One trick I picked up was to add a quarter unpeeled lime to cut the green flavor. Works very well and has a great flavor, too, with lots of benefits from the compounds in the lime peel itself. I also played with adding more and more greens and less fruit to the mix as I got used to the green flavor. Eventually I was using a full bag of greens to a half apple and half banana. I, too, freeze my bananas so I can have a cold smoothie without diluting it down with ice. Even though raw greens are a great way to build nutrient density into your diet, some of the raw greens have a naturally occurring element that's not great for the thyroid (can't remember the name of it just now)--one reason to mix it up and not just use spinach. Continuing to include cooked greens in your diet also makes some nutrients available that only become available through cooking, interestingly enough. By the way, if you quarter your apple, you can use fresh and not have to rely on applesauce.

I've always used water. If you can tolerate the taste of stevia, you might try that for added sweetness, too. Sounds like you're in the midst of an awesome experiment.

Yeah they will help move things along.

No smoothies for a couple days. I am waiting for my avocados to ripen a little.

dawnveltman1 wrote: »

About to blend one now with frozen banana and dark cherries, spinach, almond butter...now I just need a liquid.....unsweetened vanilla almond breeze???

Yum! I ended up blending about a cup and a half of spinach with some unsweetened vanilla almond milk, and a splash of cranberry juice (100%). Mixed that then added frozen bananas, mango chunks, and dark cherries. Blended after each addition. Added a splash of green goodness, I tsp of almond butter, and a scoop of vanilla whey protein.