Smoothies: tips and recipes

Recently, topics highlighting a healthy lifestyle and nutrition have become especially trendy. However, few people have the opportunity to maintain a healthy diet while spending 9 hours at work, so smoothies can be a good choice. Why? Smoothies provide a healthy and delicious way to obtain essential nutrients: vitamins, fiber, and trace elements.

Smoothies for weight loss

If your goal is also to lose weight, you should consider the necessity of reducing the number of fruit components that contain a lot of sugar and replacing them with vegetables. Vegetable smoothies may initially be disliked due to their unusual taste and lack of sugar, so a smooth start is important. Your goal is not to drink an unpalatable beverage at any cost, but to train yourself to enjoy it.

Blender for smoothies: how to choose the right one?

An integral part of making smoothies is, of course, a blender or mixer. In stores, you will find many different types that will help you prepare a fruit and vegetable drink, but when choosing, you need to focus on a number of parameters.

Power = price

Small and budget models with a power of 200 to 350 W will help make smoothies only from soft ingredients, but do not try to put nuts or pieces of beets inside the container. So if you do not plan to experiment with recipes and ingredients, you can choose this cheaper option. In general, it is recommended to buy a slightly more expensive and powerful model that can easily chop and blend frozen fruits, ice, hard vegetables, seeds or nuts.

Container material

When purchasing, it is also worth checking that the plastic container does not contain BPA (look for the appropriate label), that is, harmful bisphenol A.

Mode

For grinding and mixing raw materials, it is important to start at a lower speed in order to mix the contents more thoroughly and achieve a creamy consistency, while for mixing seeds and nuts, a higher speed will be needed. Thus, it is better to choose a model with several operating modes.

Motor power

For making smoothies, it is recommended to use a blender with a power of about 1000 W, which will allow you to prepare drinks without any restrictions.

Container size

Before buying a blender, it is important to understand whether you will be preparing a cocktail only for yourself or for other family members as well. In the second case, the size of the container is very important.

Smoothie recipes

Below are several traditional combinations of smoothie ingredients that can inspire you to invent your own recipes. For any recipe, first wash the fruits and vegetables, and cut them into smaller pieces. Always place the hardest ingredients at the bottom to achieve a uniform mass.

Vegetable weight loss smoothie

• 1 cucumber;
• 1 carrot;
• 2 stalks of celery;
• 10 spinach leaves;
• 2 sprigs of parsley;
• 1 peeled lemon;
• 1 teaspoon of chia seeds.

Beetroot smoothie

• 1 beetroot;
• 1 apple;
• 2 carrots;
• 1 sprig of parsley;
• half a peeled lemon;
• a small piece of ginger.

Cucumber smoothie

• half a cucumber;
• 4 radishes;
• half an avocado;
• half a lemon;
• 1 clove of garlic (for the brave);
• a small stalk of leeks.

Watermelon smoothie

• 250 g sugar melon;
• 200 g watermelon;
• 10 g mint;
• 85 g cucumbers;
• 135 g red grapes.

Pineapple smoothie

• 1 banana;
• 1/3 pineapple;
• 1 small handful of coriander leaves;
• 2 sprigs of mint.

Extraordinary banana cocktail

• 1 banana;
• 250 ml coconut milk;
• 1 tablespoon almond butter;
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon;
• 1 teaspoon turmeric;
• 1 teaspoon chia seeds;
• 5 pitted dates.