Smoothie Recipes

Aaron Shepard · Post by **Aaron Shepard** » 29 Mar 2008 17:15

Yo,

I love smoothies. I would have one everyday if it was possible. I think they are the best. They fill you up, and are super healthy.

Here is my blueberry smoothie recipe that is so good. You should make it because it will increase your intelligence. That is why I drink them so often, if you couldn't already tell. This is not a fallacy.

This is what you need to buy:
-a blender (not the four add kind)
-a wall with electricity
-milk
-bananas
-vanilla yogurt (get good kind)
-a bag of blueberries
-pomegranate juice concentrate
- two to three ice cubes

Here what you do with this stuff.

Add about 1/2 cup milk to the blender
add about 3/4 cup pomegranate juice
add one cup (12 oz) of good vanilla yogurt
add diced up banana
add one heaping cup of frozen blueberries
add a couple ice cubes
blend it up
and
there it is.

You can also substitute other frozen juices besides the pomegranate juice to save a little on cost.

Might any of you have some healthy fruit smoothie concoctions?

Pengu · Post by **Pengu** » 29 Mar 2008 17:21

My breakfast shake:

Oatmeal
Peanut butter
Banana
Chocolate Whey
Ground flax seeds
Fish oil
Milk
Plain yogurt

brian relly · Post by **brian relly** » 29 Mar 2008 17:25

i like to use ice cream in my smoothies. if you don't think thats healthy sue me.

-8oz. mixture of berry concentrate (look in the grocery store), orange and apple juice -> doesn't have to be exactly measured out, just everything should add up to about 8-10oz. in your blender
-handful (~5oz. cup size) of blueberries/raspberries/blackberries/strawberries/whatever
-2 or 3 cubes of ice
-2 or 3 big scoops of strawberry or vanilla ice cream (I like to mix)
blend to smooth-fection

m'mmm i make these for myself at work all day.

i also love shakes although i guess this further violates your health principles.but. just blend 8oz. of milk (at least 2%, none of that skim/soy shits) and 3 big ass scoops of your choice of ice cream (i love strawberry) and blend to shaketown. peace.

Aaron Shepard · Post by **Aaron Shepard** » 29 Mar 2008 19:48

I don't think ice cream is that bad for you, and if it is, I would rather live a short life with lots of ice cream then live long with none. Everything in moderation.

I got a good ice cream one too

one cup chocolate soy milk
one cup chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks or chocolate truffle
one cup frozen pitted cherries

mix it in the blender and fix to a good shake-like consistency. It is sooooo good. I think it fixes depression and the cherries help you sleep. It is a good night time smoothie.

Peng, do you make the oatmeal like normal before you add it to your shake, or do you just add the oats? I hope that isn't a stupid question, but I was a little curious. Also, what proportions? It looks really healthy.

Benzilla · Post by **Benzilla** » 01 Apr 2008 16:20

vanilla ice cream

chocolate syrup

milk

all in a blender = yum. I just freehand the amounts until i get the perfect consistancy i like

Pengu · Post by **Pengu** » 02 Apr 2008 16:21

I have trouble downing real food in the morning and I hate the consistency of oatmeal but I know it's good for me, so smoothies work out great. I do cook the oats.

Here's the proportions:

1/2 cup dry oats, cooked with water with no salt added.
1 tbsp Peanut butter
1/2 Banana
1 scoop Chocolate Whey (just the serving scoop you find inside whey)
1 tsp Ground flax seeds
1 tbsp Fish oil

Milk
Plain yogurt

The last two ingredients I just add until I come to a consistency I like. It keeps me full until my 2nd meal of the day. It's not an icecream shake, but I wouldn't want to start my day off with that anyway.

I also find one of those hand blenders to be perfect for single-serving smoothies because it's easier to clean than a regular blender.

Benzilla · Post by **Benzilla** » 03 Apr 2008 14:11

my post wasn't meant for a breakfast shake

..that would be a bit gross. It was like a desert type thing

capuchino man · Post by **capuchino man** » 03 Jul 2008 14:20

i dont cook my oatmeals. but this is my smoothie.. (i just put anything healthy i could find)

- milk
- ice (sometimes)
- banana
- 1/4 protein
-little peanut butter
- yogurt
- strawberries
and if i have other fruit i add them too i dont care what kind, but that was the one i drink the most

jon · Post by **jon** » 03 Jul 2008 17:09

Not to harsh anyone's mellow but the idea that a fruit smooth is really healthy is probably not true. While some people think fruit can't be anything but healthy fruit really contains a lot of natural sugars. Just something to consider. They sure do taste awesome though.

mosher · Post by **mosher** » 03 Jul 2008 22:42

I make something about like this on the regular:

- whole banana
- buncha frozen mixed berries
- dash of ground flax
- one of apple/pear/grapefruit
- milk/soy milk
- scoop of whey powder if I have any
- fish oil
- soooometimes a scoop of natural peanut butter

They fill me up and keep me going until uhh later.

I am so late getting into this thread.

dan the man · Post by **dan the man** » 04 Jul 2008 13:08

what is whey powder? ground flax? sounds healthy Tom

Maraxus · Post by **Maraxus** » 15 Jul 2008 22:04

Pengu wrote:My breakfast shake:

Oatmeal
Peanut butter
Banana
Chocolate Whey
Ground flax seeds
Fish oil
Milk
Plain yogurt

x2

pips · Post by **pips** » 16 Jul 2008 04:38

jon wrote:Not to harsh anyone's mellow but the idea that a fruit smooth is really healthy is probably not true. While some people think fruit can't be anything but healthy fruit really contains a lot of natural sugars. Just something to consider. They sure do taste awesome though.

Everybody always talks about how sugary fruit is like it is bad. Or WIC tries to tell me not to feed Kayleigh a lot of 100% juice that they provide for me (which should be natural sugar) because there is a lot of sugar in it. But my idea is that it is the best sugar you can consume, so don't bother about it like it is so bad. I'm not saying to indulge yourself in them for that reason, but don't cut them out like they are bad carbs.

I usually blend fruit, milk, and ice together. I should try yogurt sometime.

jon · Post by **jon** » 16 Jul 2008 07:28

pips wrote:
jon wrote:Not to harsh anyone's mellow but the idea that a fruit smooth is really healthy is probably not true. While some people think fruit can't be anything but healthy fruit really contains a lot of natural sugars. Just something to consider. They sure do taste awesome though.
Everybody always talks about how sugary fruit is like it is bad. Or WIC tries to tell me not to feed Kayleigh a lot of 100% juice that they provide for me (which should be natural sugar) because there is a lot of sugar in it. But my idea is that it is the best sugar you can consume, so don't bother about it like it is so bad. I'm not saying to indulge yourself in them for that reason, but don't cut them out like they are bad carbs.

I usually blend fruit, milk, and ice together. I should try yogurt sometime.

I will try to respond to this as I had another person ask me my for my reasoning. Please keep in mind I am going off what I have read and been told and I am by no means an expert or researcher in this field.

Sugar itself isn't bad. Sugar however isn't good. When I see the word healthy I think good, that's just me, so in my books sugar isn't healthy regardless of whether or not it is natural or processed. Our body needs certain things, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and other micro nutrients. They all have their place in our diet and its the amounts of each that will have the greatest affect.

Sugar is a carbohydrate and carbohydrates are typically broken down for classification purposes as either high GI/fast carbs or low GI/slow carsb. Examples of high GI carbs would be table sugar and low GI would be oatmeal. When you ingest sugar you change the level of sugar in the blood stream. In order to keep the amount of sugar floating through your blood vessels at around a teaspoon, your body releases insulin whenever you eat foods that result in sugar entering your blood stream.

Gonna quote the first result I found googling sugar/insulin because I don't see the point in typing this all myself:

Fast vs. Slow Carbs

As you probably know, carbs are actually plain sugar. As an experiment, chew on a piece of non-sweet bread for a while, and you will notice an increasing sweetness developing, because your saliva and jaw-action is breaking down the large chunks of sugar into smaller units, which in turn gets noticeable as they get smaller and smaller. This is how it works in your stomach as well. Now, the difference between slow and fast carbs, aka. complex and simple carbs, is how big the chunks of sugar are!

Assume that you have a handful of loose powder. In your stomach, there's really not anything more to digest, so the whole bunch gets launched into the blood stream, which the whole point of eating in the first place, but in this case it all gets launched at the same time, causing a HUGE, sudden surge of blood sugar! Complex carbs, on the other hand, is more like having a ball of yarn in your hand - it won't just "come apart" anytime soon, but needs to be stripped little by little. This equals a nice and even release of sugar into your blood stream.

Insulin To The Rescue

Now, what's the big deal about how fast it goes into the blood stream you may ask? Well, as a general rule, all sudden changes involving the body is bad. This is no difference. The body takes a beating from extreme levels of blood sugar (the eyes is only one such area - diabetics often develop eye problems as they grow older, simply because their regulatory system for blood sugar is out of synch), so in order to protect itself the body releases it's first, last, and only defense against the scum of the blood stream: Mr.Insulin!

Mr. Insulin is an efficient fellow, rapidly stomping down the blood sugar and thereby saving the body. The bad news is that he's a wee bit over ambitious about it, and usually slashes it down to a level BELOW where it was before eating the food. Now, if you were tired and had low blood sugar before, where do you think you end up half an hour after that candy bar, when Mr.Insulin has done his thing? Say hello to the common afternoon crash.

How does this work?

The Insulin basically force-feeds the muscles with the excess sugar, which they don't like. The amount of sugar being "let in" into the muscles depends on the level of insulin released, which in turn is determined by the insulin receptors in the muscles themselves. Think of it as a dude who listens to how hard Mr.Insulin knocks on the door to determine how wide he should open the door. Another feature of Insulin is that it is highly anabolic - it's a good friend and ally if you're an ectomorph trying to gain some mass (with moderation though, I should say. No insane 100%-sugar diets please!).

The BAD news is that it automatically shuts down your fat burn capacity and keeps it in low gear for quite a while, while actually promoting fat storage! The logic behind this is pretty simple if you remember why insulin is out there in the first place: With this massive dose of sugar going out into the blood, the body makes the assumption that it's getting a truckload of food (before the days of processed food, it was hard to achieve this kind of sugar-boost without extreme eating, so it makes sense). Since the load of food is obviously so significant that you need to store EXCESS energy (as in shoving it into the muscles), what kind of moron wouldn't grab the opportunity to refill the other form of energy storage: Your body fat! By the same token, what would be the need to set things up for fat LOSS in this scenario?

What the body does.

By now one would think that the body would recognize its mistake pretty quickly and correct itself, but this is the part where you sort of get it in the shorts - it won't! At least not for a while! So, to sum it up, you get a sudden blast of sugar in your system, and Insulin is released to protect you from it. The Insulin grabs all the sugar and shoves it into the muscles (who doesn't like it), shuts off the Fatburn-switch, and turns on the Fat Storage-switch.

But since what the body thought was a major load of food really turned out to be only meek little candy bar, there IS no surplus to handle after that initial blast of sugar ended, so you end up with an empty stomach and even lower blood sugar levels. Normally the body would compensate for this by tapping some stored fat, BUT? The ever-helpful Mr.Insulin made sure to turn that switch off, so what does the body have left? Protein. More specifically - MUSCLE protein"

So basically to summarize what I feel is important ... when you ingest simple sugars/high GI carbs on their own your body will release insulin. Insulin will cause nutrients to be transported to your muscles. These nutrients will be stored as fat.

HOWEVER, if you want to move nutrients into the muscle we can take advantage of this process. When I am bulking/putting on weight I ingest at least 50 g of dextrose/maltodextrin (http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/dextrose.php - for reasons why read this) with protein in each of my workout shakes. During and after the workout my muscles have been stimulated and fatigues and I want to use the body's insulin response to drive protein into the muscles so protein/muscle synthesis can occur. Personally I feel a during workout shake and post workout shake with high GI carbs is one of the best things one can do to put on muscle mass. If you have the cash there are even better sources of high GI carbs than dextrose/maltodextrin but I use them because they are cheap.

The problem for most people is that they consume these high GI carbs alone (in absence of proteins, like in sources such as fruit juice / fruit) and while doing no physical activity. The results are fat storage.

So in conclusion, should everyone freak out about sugar in their diet? NO However for those looking for the healthiest alternative fruit/natural sugars are probably not the best thing they could be snacking on. Consuming water when thirsty is a much better idea than juice. Consuming protein or protein/with low GI carbs for a snack is better than consuming sugar foods like chocolate and fruit.

Hope that helps people understand my earlier comments and props if you managed to read though the whole post

LEGOMAN · Post by **LEGOMAN** » 17 Jul 2008 21:07

om nom nom sugar om nom nom

simon12332 · Post by **simon12332** » 24 Aug 2008 09:50

jon wrote:Not to harsh anyone's mellow but the idea that a fruit smooth is really healthy is probably not true. While some people think fruit can't be anything but healthy fruit really contains a lot of natural sugars. Just something to consider. They sure do taste awesome though.

Fruit sugars dont give you a sugar rush, because they have a low glycemic load. this means they dont trigger and insulin surge. this is GOOD. also, as long as burn the carbs from sugar, ur fine. the only diff between sugar carbs and carbs from whole grain is that the whole grain stay in your body longer before becoming fat. so those could be bad, but as long as you burn off the carbs, they're fine.

jon · Post by **jon** » 24 Aug 2008 12:46

Could be wrong, has happened before, but I believe both low gi and high gi cause insulin release just at different rates. How is this a good thing in the absence of physical activity? During activity I can see a time when drinking fruit based drinks is fine but as a snack esp when not also consumed with a protein course I think there are healthier choices.

btw noticed it's your first post, welcome to the forums