In Malcolm Gladwell’s best selling book Outliers he populated the notion that you need to perform 10 000 hours to achieve mastery in any field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After three years of running my own smoothie bar and 10 years of drinking them at home, I’ve done my 10. Humbly I say, I’m an expert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After firing up the blender all these years, I noticed a consistency that runs through a perfect smoothie. A formula. The healthiest and best tasting combos look like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our mean infographic lays it out and let’s you choose your own adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A good smoothie always starts with veggies. There’s no easier way to get serious size servings of age preserving multivitamins into your body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spinach is my all time go-to. It’s the beginner and expert green because it’s low on bitterness and high on nutrients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two cups if you measure it. Or just one big handful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next up is frozen fruit. It provides creamy texture, fibre and slow releasing energy. Never think of fruit as fructose. Fruit doesn’t spike your blood sugar or make you fat. You need to eat more fruit, not less. So do I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For smoothies, bananas are my go to. As well as softening your stool (unnecessary alliteration!) and giving you energy, they contain hydrating potassium and vitamin C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other options include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you’re not organised enough to freeze your fruit (which is me most days), use\u00a0fresh fruit with\u00a01\/2 a cup of ice. It thickens and chills. No one wants a watery, room temperature smoothie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Protein, as well as narcissisticly toning you up, helps keep you full. That means less grazing immediately afterwards and there’s evidence that a protein dense breakfast leads to healthier choices throughout the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our favourite proteins are plant based. They simply have more vitamins and minerals that make you younger. Nuts and seeds have up to 20g of protein and they’re full of essential fats. The vitamin E content, amongst other nutrients, makes your skin healthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I scoop a generous tablespoon of nut butter, or a handful of nuts and seeds, in my smoothies. It makes breakfast a serious meal. My favourites are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dairy isn’t essential to good health. In fact, it’s the opposite. 60% of humans don’t even have the digestive enzyme to process milk after infancy. And there are plenty of other studies that show it’s not a healthy source of protein or calcium (the inflammation is actually bad for your bones!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whey used to be thrown in the bin. It’s a bi-product of making cheese. Then someone realised it’s protein dense and after a bunch of commercial manufacturing steps you can sell it to people wanting to look better. Suddenly a billion dollar empire was born out of garbage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plus, have you read the ingredient label of whey\/casein protein? Tell me which of these foods you make at home or order at a restaurant: milk solids, dextrin, arabinogalactan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the dairy rant, I’m not a huge advocate for plant based powders either. Again, read the label. They have the same sweeteners, synthetic ingredients and stabilisers as whey and casein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I look for a hemp protein with as few ingredients as possible. Or I make my own protein powder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You’ll see a lot of coconut water and almond milk recommendations on our website. They’re our go-to’s. I particularly love 100% coconut water. It’s naturally sweet and full of hydrating electrolytes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Almond milk is a little creamier and cheaper to buy but unlike coconut water, not every almond milk is the same. Perfect world, you’ll make your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if you’re time poor (#lazy) like me then you’ll buy it. Try find one with a 1-6 week expiration date, sold in a fridge. These ones cost more and are more perishable. They should have over 10% almonds and not many more other ingredients than water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other liquids we love:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Natural sweeteners are optional for the super conscious crowd but I’m a sweet-tooth. In moderation they bring their own nutritional properties. My favourites are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some plant protein powders are ok and work as a sweet flavouring agent as well as a protein. But forget using rice malt syrup as your sweetener for anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can make make thousands of combinations with the formula as it is but we’ve got a few superfoods to add to the mix. They’ll give unique properties and\/or flavour enhancements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can’t get more comprehensive than that. If that’s a little overwhelming, my daily go-to is baby spinach, frozen banana, oats, dates, rice milk, ice and cinnamon. It ticks every nutritional box I want and it’s a serious meal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Malcolm Gladwell’s best selling book Outliers he populated the notion that you need to perform 10 000 hours to achieve mastery in any field. After three years of running my own smoothie bar and 10 years of drinking them at home, I’ve done my 10. Humbly I say, I’m an expert. After firing up the blender all these years, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenpress.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}