The components of my morning power smoothie

I call this a power smoothie because it fuels me for several hours, despite being primarily fruits, vegetables, and a little protein. After one of these, I can go for 4+ hours before I need to eat anything else. Any other breakfast and I'm hungry and lackluster 2 to 3 hours later. My version of a smoothie may not be a power one for you, however. But here's what I put in mine, nonetheless.

Making smoothies can be a bit of a pain first thing in the morning. To at least have 2 out of every 3 mornings easy for me, I make 3 days worth of smoothies at a time, refrigerating the leftovers to stir and pour the following days.

As I'm assembling a 3-day master smoothie, I consider these categories:

• orange vegetables
• red vegetables
• green vegetables
• purple/blue fruit
• any miscellaneous fruit that would add sweetness and bulk
• protein
• plus green tea for caffeine and antioxidants and flax seed meal for fiber and omega-3s

I incorporate a total of 6 servings of fruits and vegetables in the master, so that I will get 2 servings with each day's portion.

In this day's mix I added a whole banana, a serving of frozen blackberries, a serving of pumpkin puree, 2 tablespoons of organic beet root powder, and a scoop of greens powder = roughly 6 servings of fruits/vegetables. I also added 6 tablespoons of defatted peanut butter powder for protein, the contents of 1 green tea tea bag, and 1 tablespoon of flax seed meal, plus water to puree the batch.

🥕I alternate orange vegetables between pumpkin, cooked sweet potatoes, and steamed carrots (leftover from a previous meal). All three options provide a lot of Vitamin A. 

 Beet root powder (the red vegetable) helps control blood pressure, improves recovery after exercising, and improves blood flow to the brain. All are areas I need help with. 

🥬 I use a commercial greens powder, but could also use a 1/2 cup of cooked leafy greens like spinach or kale. However, the greens powder I use contains two types of beneficial algae, which I especially appreciate for their cardiovascular benefits. Commercial greens powders can be expensive, so I use just 1 scoop (serving) per 3 smoothies.

🫐 We have a lot of frozen blackberries from our backyard patch harvested each summer. We also have some blueberries and some raspberries. The blackberries are wild ones, with large seeds. The seeds themselves are good for digestion, contain omega-3s and omega-9s, contain protein, and are beneficial for both skin and hair. The flesh of blackberries are rich in antioxidants, high in Vitamins C and K, and contain compounds that may help prevent heart disease and insulin resistance. I also like to use our patch's raspberries. Both raspberries and blackberries contain ellagic acid, which may work to prevent age-related cognitive decline and slow the growth of cancer cells.

🍌 The miscellaneous fruit is often bananas, as they're inexpensive, provide bulk and sweetness to cover strong flavors like beet powder or cooked green vegetables, and they contain potassium and magnesium. I also use homegrown crabapple and apple sauces or frozen pear chunks in smoothies when we're out of bananas.

🥜 Protein is a little more difficult for me, as I can't do dairy. I use plenty of soy milk in baking and cooking during the day, so I prefer not to also add more soy to my smoothies. My most favorite protein sources for smoothies, then, are peanut butter powder, natural peanut butter, and almond flour. I also sometimes add a couple of spoonfuls of cooked brown rice or cooked quinoa to complement the amino acids in the nut and peanut butter protein components. 

🫖 This next addition to my smoothies may sound odd, but I empty the contents of a single small green tea tea bag into the master smoothie. If you've had matcha tea, you've eaten tea leaves. Matcha is finely ground green tea leaves (of a particular green tea plant), ground to a powder and stirred into hot water. As a tea, each cup contains greater concentrations of both flavor and antioxidants of green tea compared to infusing a tea bag in hot water. So, adding the contents (but not the bag itself) of a  single green tea tea bag adds concentrated antioxidants to my smoothie. Green tea contains polyphenols, l-theanine, and caffeine and may help with cholesterol, brain health, metabolism, and mitigating cancer risk.

🌾 Finally, I add 1 tablespoon of flax seed meal to the master smoothie, adding omega-3s, fiber, protein, and lignans (fights plaque build-up in arteries and may help prevent hormone-fueled cancers, like breast cancer).

I said that making a 3-day master smoothie saves time for me. But I also like making this 3-day batch because it allows me to have greater variety of ingredients than I would likely add to a single day's smoothie. I likely wouldn't add 1/3 of a banana or 1/3 of a tea bag's contents or a single teaspoon of flax seed meal if I were making just that morning's smoothie. This way, I include a kaleidoscope of colorful ingredients in every sip.

My thoughts on powders vs whole foods

Some of the ingredients that I use are in powdered form, like the beet powder, the greens powder, and defatted peanut butter powder. In a perfect world, I believe it would be better to only use whole foods. However, for the beets and algae in particular, the powder is such a convenience and ensures I actually use both beet root and these particular greens in each smoothie. The defatted peanut butter is high in protein and low in fat, and I will favor those attributes over actual peanut butter for protein for a few days per week. The peanut butter, though, adds needed fats. So I like to rotate what I use for protein.

Do you have any favorite smoothie variations or additions? Bottom's up!

On another topic -- I will begin Advent readings, various Old and New Testament passages and verses on Sunday, Nov. 30 on my other blog His love resets my heart. I would like to invite you to join me in these daily readings leading up to Christmas. I usually have the day's readings posted by 7 AM PST, if you're interested.