One of my favorite breakfasts (besides pastured eggs and grass-fed bacon) is a green smoothie! Many of my friends scoff when I tell them this because they make the assumption that my smoothies are nothing but kale and water. This could NOT be farther from the truth. As I mentioned in my New Years’ Resolution post, I love juicing and plan to do it as much as possible this year, but I love blending just as much. I’m a big fan of both as they are amazing ways to easily sneak a LOT more veggies in your diet.
First of all, juicing and blending are NOT the same thing. When you juice, you are extracting the nutrients from the fruits and vegetables you are using and leaving only behind vitamins and minerals from your produce. As your stomach doesn’t have to stress itself out by extracting nutrients, your body is alkalized much more quickly and easily – essentially your juicer is doing most of the digestion for you. Blending, on the other hand, simply does a bit of chewing (minus the saliva), and leaves the fiber intact, which is what keeps you full and satisfied. Because the fiber is still in place, I personally find smoothies to be an amazing meal replacement option, particularly after a period of very poor eating habits (AKA me over the holidays) or if I’m just too lazy to cook. The slower release of nutrients also balances your bodies pH and blood sugar (due to the fiber).
When I make smoothies, my basic formula is as follows: 1.) a liquid base like coconut water or homemade almond milk, 2.) 3 to 1 veggie to fruit ratio (to avoid a sugar overload), 3.) 1 source of healthy fat, and a fun bonus (protein powder, raw cacao powder, flaxseeds, cinnamon, chia seeds, the list goes on and on!). I love smoothies because of the endless amount of superfoods you can sneak in without your taste buds noticing – my personal favorites are spirulina for extra chlorophyll and alkalinity or maca powder for a caffeine-free energy boost. I personally make this smoothie fairly often for breakfast and find that I am very satisfied until lunchtime:
Smoothies are amazing when you’re in a bind because they are so easy to change as you go along so feel free to play around with the amount of sweetener and water you use to adjust to your personal preferences. I love my smoothies to be on the creamier side so I don’t add as much liquid as most people. Just try not to go crazy with the sweetener!
I’ve been blending smoothies for about a month now and was quite clueless about where to start with Superfoods. Thanks for giving me some ideas!
No problem – let me know which ones you try and how you like them. I’m always open to new ideas for superfoods too.
Recipe looks great! actually looking at juicers now haha
Hooray! Let me know which one you wind up getting – now we can juice when I’m in LA!! : )
[...] promised, my follow-up to my blending post is to help you get started with juicing! As a novice juicer myself, I won’t pretend that [...]
So helpful! Thanks for showing the difference, as I was clueless! I bought some flax seed for a recipe and was thinking it would be a great addition to my smoothies. But do I need to grind it first? Or can I just throw it in whole?
Hannah
Hi Hannah! I’m so happy you found this helpful. You can definitely had flax seeds into your smoothies, I think they are a wonderful source of fat. But just keep in mind they have a very unique texture (sort of grainy?) that may be off putting to some. For that reason, I tend to buy pre-ground flax seeds!
So I’m debating getting a vitamix or this juicer… which do you think would be more beneficial? We have Christmas gift cards to use, so this would actually be covered and if we did the Vita-mix instead would only spend about $150 out of pocket on it. I’ve never juiced before and have only made a handful of smoothies! Suggestions?!
Hi Christina! In my opinion, I would probably go for a Vitamix first. I think you can get a lot more use out of the Vitamix besides making smoothies, its wonderful for making homemade nut milks (the ones available at stores are filled with additives that you don’t want to put into your body) and even wonderful for making sauces, soups and sorbets!
If I blended all my fruit and veggies, then strained them to get the “pulp” out do you think that could sub for a juicer until I can get one or is there something scientific about a juicer they aren’t telling us about?!
Hi Whitney! I haven’t tried that myself so I can’t speak from experience, but I imagine you could do that. A few things to keep in mind though – you will probably want to add more of your liquid base for ease of straining and it will probably take a good amount of time to get rid of all the pulp. Give it a shot and please let me know how it goes : )
For those asking, we have a vitamix and we blend and juice in it. To juice – we blend – and then we strain using a paint strainer and our muscle. Clean up is easy peasy and you have the wonderful option of blending or juicing. I say go for the VitaMix!
To Christina – I debated over the popular Vita-mix myself and settled on the Ninja as a practical, cost-effective alternative last year. I’m sure the Vita-mix is fantastic, but for the money I am beyond thrilled with the Ninja. Easy to use, easy to clean and it gets used almost every day! Thought I’d share in case this was one of your alternate choices. I also have a juicer, but rarely use it now that I have my Ninja!
To Whitney – I usually only juice now to build bases for my blending. For example, I like carrots juiced rather than blended, so I’ll juice those and add those to my liquid that I’m using for my smoothies.
Have you ever tried combining the two? I personally love juicing and then trowing the juice in a blender with some frozen fruit. Then I don’t get any of the extra yuckies that are sometimes added to juice, I know exactly what is in it.
I actually haven’t, mostly out of laziness but I think that is an incredible idea – it is always better to go homemade for peace of mind! Your typical commercially available juices are generally filled with artificial flavorings to enhance their flavor after being in storage for long periods of time. I usually use homemade nut milks or Harmless Harvest coconut water as my liquid base.
I have a Vita Mix and make a green juice every morning. I’ve never had to strain my greens or any other fruit or vegetable, it blends them down to pure liquid. I love starting the day with almost a days worth of fruit & vegetables.
Hi! I have a juicer… 1)Should I be adding powders and add ons to yhem? 2) how bad is it to have more fruit than veg? 3) blenders: I have one… Never used it for a smoothie… Are smoothies technically healthier than juice? Also… How does one… “Smoothie”…?