Making your own healthy smoothies

In our last blog post, we talked about making homemade milkshakes as a great way to encourage children and adults alike to drink more fresh milk, a wonderful source of calcium and vitamin D. Today, we’re going to look at smoothies and at how to cram them with superfood goodness to make a healthy breakfast or to form part of a balanced weight-loss program through meal replacement.

Before we go any further, it’s important to make the distinction between the kind of smoothies that are served at fast-food stores or sold in many supermarkets and cafes, and smoothies that are designed and made at home in order to provide health benefits or help you lose weight. All too often, store-bought smoothies are heavy on sugars, and sometimes fat, in order to make them as appealing to customers as possible and therefore to sell more of them. With homemade smoothies, you can tailor the ingredients exactly as you wish, avoiding sugary ingredients and making sure that you stick to your calorie goals. Homemade smoothies can still be just as delicious and satisfying, without filling them with naughty ingredients!

Healthy breakfast smoothies

Start your day off brilliantly with a healthy breakfast smoothie. Each evening, combine fresh milk, natural low-fat yoghurt and fruit or berries of your choice and blend to a thick and creamy consistency. Pour this into glass bottles and store in the fridge overnight, so that your smoothie is ready to drink as soon as you get up in the morning. We all know that good intentions will soon fall by the wayside if you leave the preparation until the morning, so get into good habits from the outset and you’ll soon establish a routine. To make your breakfast smoothie more filling and add vital fibre to your diet, try adding a couple of spoonfuls of porridge oats to the mix. These will soak up the milk overnight and give the smoothie a richer taste and thicker consistency.

Some excellent ideas for breakfast smoothies include blueberry and banana, or avocado and apple. For the ultimate healthy breakfast smoothie, combine a banana, a handful of chopped kale and a handful of blueberries with low fat yoghurt and blend well. You can add a pinch of cinnamon for flavour and some porridge oats or bran for that extra fibre. Green shakes aren’t for everyone, but if you aren’t phased by the appearance of this drink, you’ll be amazed at how great it tastes and how well it sets you up for the day. You could even prepare it in advance, pour it into a lidded glass milk bottle and take it with you to drink on your daily commute.

Low-calorie smoothies as a diet snack

One of the hardest parts of losing weight is avoiding the temptation to snack between meals. You know the feeling - you’ve had breakfast, it’s at least an hour until lunch, but you’re already feeling a little peckish. If that happens to you, instead of reaching for a packet of biscuits, try a low-calorie smoothie instead. Mix a handful of cranberries with a glass of skimmed milk and add a teaspoon of honey and a pinch of ground ginger - blend it all together and enjoy a satisfying smoothie that is around 100 calories.

Smoothies as meal replacements

If you plan to replace some meals with low-calorie smoothies, you need to plan ahead to ensure that you choose recipes that are filling enough and that have plenty of vitamins and nutrients in them. If you replace a meal with a smoothie that isn’t very filling or appetising, you increase the chances of your diet going astray and temptation taking over.

Try an oat and avocado smoothie, with flax seeds or chia seeds added in, along with some oats to make the drink more filling. Again, pour the drink into a milk bottle and take it to work with you so that you’re not tempted to pop out to the local sandwich shop at lunchtime. The best weight-loss tactics always involve a slow and steady approach to lose weight that stays off. Even just a week of lunchtime meal replacements will make a noticeable difference, and before you know it, you’ve cut out those unhealthy lunches at work, and got into a real smoothie lunch routine.

One of the best things about smoothies is that you are free to experiment - just see what ingredients you’ve got in the freezer and mix up a smoothie. If it’s not quite perfect, try adding some spices or flavourings and see where it leads you. You could even prepare a batch of different smoothies, putting them in separate glass bottles and then holding a taste test with the rest of the family to see which ideas work the best.

If you love smoothies as much as we do, why not share your recipe ideas with us via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook? We always love seeing what our friends on social media have created!