Ayurveda PSA: Not All Smoothies Are Healthy

Smoothies are not always healthy. Traditional smoothies are cold and often combine difficult to digest ingredients.

Avoid starting your day with a cold smoothie on a cold winter day. Cold weakens digestion and beginning cold days with cold food sets up your digestion for challenge the entire day. Ever feel bloated or gassy after a smoothie? This may be due to the cold quality as well as incompatible food combining.

Banana and dairy are never recommended to be mixed together in Ayurveda. It is considered a toxic combination that can cause build up in the body.

Fruit is best eaten alone. Fruit, especially berries, digests quickly and can ferment when sitting in the body with more difficult and heavy to digest food like dairy and protein. There are some exceptions such as mango lassi, or stewed apple with oatmeal.

Smoothies often use protein powders. If you use protein powder, be sure to use a powder with clean, whole ingredients. Something like pea protein, for example, digests easier than a protein with a lot of additives or fillers. Or just leave the protein powder out of your smoothies.

Try coconut milk or coconut water in your smoothies instead of dairy milk if using fruit.

Leave out ice and frozen ingredients. Add ginger or other warming or aromatic spices for help with digestion.

Have a warm cup of soup instead of a cold smoothie. Warm soup can have bountiful nutritional benefits and is easier to digest because of warmth, spices, and having been cooked.

Try these Ayurveda approved smoothie recipes if you want to enjoy a smoothie:

Recipes from Neeta Patel website (all are amazing!).

Banana Smoothie with Lime and Cardamom from Joyful Belly.

Pumpkin Smoothie from Katie Silcox & The Shakti School. This is a hot smoothie!

The recipes and information below are from Andrea of Buttered Veg: *feel free to omit the sugar 🙂

Blueberries, Strawberries, Banana, and Cardamom Smoothie

• ¼ cup blueberries
• ½ cup strawberries
• ½ banana
• 1 teaspoon raw organic sugar
• ⅛ teaspoon cardamom powder
• 1 cup cool water
• * This is an all-fruit smoothie, but the addition of cardamom does wonders for the digestibility of this smoothie. Since it has a bit of raw sugar, kids may especially love it.

Apple, Lime, and Arugula Smoothie

• 1 apple, cored
• ½ lime, juiced
• 2 cups fresh arugula
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger root, chopped
• 1 cup cool water
• tiny pinch Himalayan pink salt
• * I used arugula fresh from the garden, so this smoothie really packed a punch. If you find this smoothie too sour or peppery, add a bit of honey to sweeten it up. A lot depends on how sweet your apple is. Mine was a bit tart, so I added the honey, and it made all the difference.

Watermelon, Lime, and Cardamom Smoothie

• 2 cups watermelon
• half lime, juiced
• 1 teaspoon raw sugar
• ⅛ teaspoon cardamom, for more information about cardamom, please see this post.
• * This is really lovely. The cardamom balances perfectly with the sweet watermelon. Thanks to Joyful Belly for inspiring this recipe.

Instructions

• For each of the recipes, blend all ingredients in a blender until well pulverized.

To serve

• Enjoy cool, or at room temperature.