Smoothies!!

Ok, here is way too much information on smoothies. A couple we are friends with recently began to make smoothies after hearing me talk about them, so I typed up some information for them. I meant to send them a simple recipe, but it ended up being a novel, so I thought I'd post it here to help others who might be new to smoothies. Hopfully some of this will be interesting and not bore you to death. :)

----------
Here is the smoothie I started out with that got me addicted:

Dr. Oz Brain Boosting Smoothie
1 banana
1/4 cup blueberries (frozen)
1/2 cup apple juice
handful of hemp seeds (from Whole Foods; but you could substitute flax seeds, flax meal, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, etc.)
*If you wanted to make it green, just add a handful of spinach, and if you need more liquid add a little water.

Here is a good one we had yesterday: Apple-Spinach Juice (I made this in the Blendtec though, so not sure how well a regular blender will blend the apples...you might want to add only a bit at a time)
*cored and cut up apples (3)
*spinach (couple of handfuls)
*enough water to get your blender to spin and get the consistency you want

I don't normally go by recipes for my smoothies since I like to wing-it (this is sometimes good and sometimes really terrible), but here is what I've learned from reading a ton and from my experience:
*if you want it to be sweet, (always) start with a banana (or 2...or 3...)
*if you want to thicken it, add 1/2 to 1 avocado (can even be a pudding-like consistency it's so thick; also chia seeds thicken)
*liquid sweeteners: honey, agave, maple syrup -- but beware, these are concentrated sweeteners, so still aren't THAT great for you; same with fruit juice...better to use the whole fruit when possible and avoid the processed juice
*whole food sweeteners: banana, other sweet fruit, pitted medjool dates (helps to soak the dates in water first to soften them; they have these in Harris Teeter next to the bananas and you can buy them one by one if you want to try)--whole food sweeteners are the best in my opinion
*when making green smoothies, your ratio of fruit to greens should be about 60% fruit to 40% greens--though I would err on the side of more fruit to begin with
*the best starter greens for smoothies are spinach and romaine lettuce because they have very mild tastes (you probably won't even notice they're in there except that the smoothie may be green). never use iceberg lettuce as it has virtually no nutritional value. you can also use kale, collards, mustard greens, etc. but I wouldn't start out with those as they definitely have a much stronger green taste.
*other "green" add-ins that we have tried and liked: cucumber (my new fav), carrot, celery, tomato, mint, cilantro
*fruits we've tried: blueberry, strawberry, banana (if you really get into this, you can buy the clearanced--already brown--bananas at Harris Teeter for $0.20 per pound--they usually have a ton of them...you can even freeze them), blackberry (very seedy in a reg blender), avocado, kiwi, raspberry, apple, mango, plums, pears
*other add-in ideas: flax seed or meal, hemp seed (love these), chia seeds (love these), cocoa or cacao powder or nibs, almond or peanut butter, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, sunflower seeds, oat bran, granola, any nuts, coconut water, coconut milk, dried or fresh herbs

One of my favorite fruit smoothies (The Skinny Monkey...hey, I didn't name it!) is simply:
*banana
*honey
*skim milk
*granola

And another is:
*banana
*cocoa powder
*peanut or almond butter
*milk
*honey

You could easily sneak some greens in there too and probably not even taste them.

We typically use water as the main liquid in our smoothies, but if you're craving something creamier, then you can make a milk-based one. Or you can add nuts along with water and that creates a "nut milk" so that would also be creamy.

Ok, I'm done now! haha Get blending!