Source
r/AskCulinary•
Gerhardvd

Making the healthiest smoothie of them all (+100% RDA micronutrients)

Background

I'm on a quest to be the healthiest lazy person out there, I care a great deal about natural bodybuilding and longevity. But I'm also a very minimalistic person who likes to get the best results from the least amount of effort, time and money.

So after a while I've stumbled across this recipe from the very knowledgable nutritionist Dr Rhonda where she gives a recipe and explaination of all ingredients required to meet and exceed the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) of all vitamins, minerals but is also a packed with anti-oxidants, enzymes, flavonoids and more.

I have adjusted this recipe slightly to better match what is available in the markets where I life in the Netherlands.

So far I have made 10 of these smoothies, I pre-cut them, bag them and freeze them for practical purpose. It makes me feel great and energetic and I highly recommend it. But the problem is that they are PACKED with fibre (about 50 gram) which solidifies the 2 liter smoothie after it sits for a while which makes it less enjoyable and harder to drink, the smoothie tastes OK but the many ingredients give it a bland taste and color.

So I would rather split the ingredients in two and make one fresh-sour tasting green smoothie and another one for the sweet ingredients with some vegetables that complement the latter smoothie too and I need your help on this.

So far I got:

Fresh-sour smoothie

  • 200g Kale
  • 200g Spinach
  • 2 Parts of celery
  • 1 Carrot
  • 1 Tomato
  • 25ml Lemon juice concentrate
  • 1 Avocado
  • Some parsley

Sweet smoothie

  • 200g of Blueberries or a red berry (cheaper) mix
  • 125g Whey protein powder

optional for taste

  • Ginger
  • Chia seed
  • 1 Apple
  • 1 Banana

I would like to swap some of the ingredients from the first smoothie to the second, what will taste best? I'm trying to make both smoothies equally as fibrous/thick.

What are your thoughts? What would you add, swap and change?

EDIT: After great advice on several subreddits I swapped some things up and I like what I have so far. For the people curious about the micronutrients in this smoothie. I use this PDF as reference

Fresh-sour smoothie

  • 200g Kale
  • 200g Spinach
  • 25ml Lemon juice concentrate
  • 1 Avocado
  • Some parsley
  • Water

Sweet smoothie

  • 200g of Blueberries or a red berry (cheaper) mix
  • 125g Whey protein powder (cream and berries flavor)
  • 2 Parts of celery
  • 1 Carrot
  • 1 Tomato
  • Water

optional ingredients for flavor and extra calories

  • Ginger
  • Chia seed
  • Apple
  • Banana
  • Greek Yogurt

Posted Oct 21, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC · edited

6534
ionsandstuff•

Make sure to get some fat in there to aid in fat-soluble vitamin (A, D, E, K) absorption.

14
MisterElemental•

Think some avocado would do the trick?

6
CaptainKaos•

You can throw peanuts or almonds in the blender too.

5
misplaced_my_pants•

Or some whole milk or heavy cream or something.

5
Ironpoon•

I do half an avocado with the blueberry one. So creamy. Especially woth some cacao powder.

3
CaptainObvious•

The chef in me is dying evey time she uses her knife on that "cutting board."

7
misplaced_my_pants•

Right? I'm not even a chef. That poor blade.

3
goppeldanger•

I make sweet smoothies and kale, spinach, and or carrots don't detract at all. I bet an avocado wouldn't change it much either, aside from thickening

6
bc2zbBiochemist | Home enthusiast•

I was going to say the same thing. You could move half of each of the fibrous stuff to the second smoothie. Nothing is really going to overpower those berries. If they do, you could always add some sweetener (pick your favorite, nutritive or non nutritive), or use a flavored whey powder.

3
GerhardvdOP•

I already use a berry/cream flavored whey powder, I forgot to mention that :)

1
bc2zbBiochemist | Home enthusiast•

No worries, also, why not soylent? Just more of a whole foods kind of person?

4
GerhardvdOP•

I actually tried a DIY soylent a few years ago - didn't make me feel as great. And since the science behind nutrition is still changing and evolving a lot I'd rather be safe and choose for whole foods which might benefit us for reasons we are not aware of yet.

3
halo46•

Pineapple really helps

1
md_429•

I like your lazy/fit attitude! You could move the ginger and apple to the first smoothie and make it like a lemon, ginger and apple flavour. Maybe move the avocado and spinach to the second. However i think the tomato might effect the taste in the first one. Do you mind tomatoes? You could turn it into a bloody mary type smoothie, move the avocado and spinach to the second one, add some pepper, tabasco and Worcestershire sauce to the bloody mary one. Add some water and give it a good mix if things get too thick. I find protein can get thick if you leave it to sit, maybe add that only when you go to drink it? Try and find a protein powder that people recommend for baking, I find these ones clump less!

4
GerhardvdOP•

These are so great tips! No I actually love tomato's even as a snack. Moving spinach to the second smoothie might make the color less appetizing though. I will definitely look into the bloody mary type smoothie though :)

1
GailaMonster•

Maybe just enjoy a lightly salted tomato as a daily snack rather than forcing it in a smoothie- it seems that the tomato flavor will be the hardest to get to "play" with the other ingredients.

5
FarbrorJorgen•

I could do some work on this if you want me to?

What micro nutrients are you interested in having 100% of? Are you asking to create a smoothie by adjusting the green smoothie and add berries and whey?

1
GerhardvdOP•

All of them.

This PDF will give you just about the contents of the smoothie, credits to Dr Rhonda from FoundMyFitnss.

Do you have any reliable and easy to work with source where I can find this information?

2
FarbrorJorgen•

I have accesses to some great software and you didn't answer my questions.

1
GerhardvdOP•

I'm trying to make two smoothies with the ingredients Dr Rhonda gives in the video. Basically I want cover all the essential micronutrients and fibre in these two 2L smoothies. I know there are different RDA models but to honest I'm not very knowledgeable (but I would like to learn) on these models and I trust Dr Rhonda's expertise when she says these things cover +100% of the RDA's.

What are your thoughts on this? Are you in a position to share this software, because I would love to play with it.

Cheers.

1
FarbrorJorgen•

This is the recipe green smoothie + blueberries and whey powder.

The numbers on the bars are percentage of your daily intake. Sorry about the text being in swedish, hopefully you'll understand the words anyway. I can´t share my software but I can put together the recipes for you to see if you want to.

Edit: Here is the green smoothie in the edit

And the sweet smoothie

5
dicotyledon•

I put kale in fruit smoothies all the time. I recently found that if you microwave the kale (from frozen) for a couple minutes, blend it with the liquid on its own (I use soup setting on blender), then add the fruit, the texture is a lot better. I add a few ice cubes to get it chilled again. Kale fruit smoothie is my go-to if I feel like I haven't had enough vegetables on any given day.

Costco has great quality frozen pineapple, which goes really well with it. You probably don't have Costco in the Netherlands though I guess.

1
s_o_0_n•

Where's the first smoothie recipe?

1
delph•

125g of whey in one smoothie? That's 4 scoops and 100g of protein in one shake? Even if you're going for a high protein diet, that's a lot to get from whey. FYI, I eat 180-200g protein a day, so I'm not knocking your protein goals, but you're better off getting protein from real food and supplementing with whey as needed. Also 125g is going to make it very thick. I use 35-50g of protein powder. Berries will also thicken it up. Add almond milk and take some whey out and it should be much more manageable.

That said, I often make shakes with spinach, unsweetened almond milk (a few grams of healthy fat and tastes good), whey (and sometimes collagen), Greek yogurt, berries, raw cacao, chia, cinnamon, cayenne, ginger - things like that to make a high-protein, nutrient dense shake. I also know Rhonda's video and I'm not that dedicated yet (although I eat a very large amount of veggies throughout the day).

Spinach and Greek yogurt and whey and cacao powder (and cinnamon and ginger powder and chia seed/powder) will thicken both up. Almond milk is thicker than water but barely. Avocado will also thicken. So will coconut milk. You might want to consider unflavored whey if you want to add protein to savory foods (myprotein.com has it and also sells independent flavdrops so you can sugar-free flavor accordingly).

1
Gekko463•

If you are really shooting for full nutrition, you might consider throwing all the things in a blender like:

Lettuce and tomato

Heinz 57 and

French Fried Potatoes

Big Kosher Pickle and

A cold draft beer oh

Good god o molly which way do I veer for a...

WTF is wrong with just eating a healthy delicious cheeseburger??????? Liquid salad? Cheez...Whiz...

-8
GailaMonster•

I make a big healthy fibrous fruit/veggie smoothie sometimes SO THAT I can choose a cheeseburger at dinner and not be nutritionally fucking it up for myself. I am not likely to choose entree salads unless it is HOT outside, but a smoothie is a lazy way to check some of the micronutrient and fiber boxes so that it's not completely irresponsible to have steak frites for dinner.

Think of it as a multivitamin, but where your body actually ABSORBS the vitamins, mixed with an extra couple glasses of water and a fiber supplement. you know, food.

5
GerhardvdOP•

Exactly this, these smoothies cover just about all of the vitamins, minerals, fibre and water you need in a day. Which makes the shitty food less shitty, is it optimal? No, but is it convenient? Fuck yes.

I feel like people need to worry less about what they eat and worry more about what they're missing. Because chronic deficiencies of certain minerals and vitamins will definitely make you more prone to disease,

1
AxilyaOryl•

healthy

cheeseburger

Your oxymoron gave me cancer.

2