[Recipe] Weight Loss Program: Creamy Walnut Green Smoothie

Can smoothies really help me lose weight?

The short answer is, YES!

The slightly longer answer is, IT DEPENDS …

Remember, while smoothies are delicious, they are not a magic formula and will only help you lose weight when included as part of a healthy weight loss program.

So drink them as they come, simply because they are tasty. Or add them to your weight loss plan and watch your weight drop.

Either way you will be getting healthy nutrients your body needs and, especially with green smoothies, you will have more energy.

Today’s recipe is from Sarah Copeland at Walnuts.org. It requires a little forward planning that can easily be done the evening before.

We are generally advised to soak nuts to reduce their oxalate content which interferes with calcium absorption – which could lead to osteoporosis. One quick solution is to make sure you eat calcium-rich foods at other times in the day and not just with your green leafy veggies. One really good reason to have yogurt as a snack.

However, as with many things, it is more complicated than that. I found an interesting article at WHFoods. I’ve pulled some extracts from their article, but if this is something that interests you might want to read the whole article, so I’ve put the link at the end. They say …

While many people think about oxalates as some rare and undesirable component of food, oxalates are naturally-occurring substances found in a wide variety of foods and they play a supportive role in the metabolism of many plants and animals and in our human metabolism as well. So in terms of our overall health and diet, oxalates are neither rare nor undesirable …

 

Oxalates can become problematic, however, if they over-accumulate inside our body. The key site for problems with over-accumulation is our kidneys … Even if we did not eat oxalate-containing foods, we would still have oxalates in our body since we are able to make them in a variety of ways … oxalate-containing foods … include [spinach and] other green leafy vegetables …

 

… lemon and lime juice [are] … high in other organic acids called citrates. Research suggests that the high citrate content in lemon and lime juice might actually help prevent calcium oxalate kidney stone formation. By binding together with calcium in place of oxalates, citrates can help prevent supersaturation of the urine with calcium oxalate. In addition, the citrate salts that are formed during this process can help raise the urine pH and further lower the risk of calcium oxalate stone formation (since these stones tend to form at a low urine pH) …

 

An ongoing controversy in oxalate research involves the degree to which food oxalates interfere with calcium absorption from those foods. In general, calcium can be a somewhat difficult mineral to absorb from food … and the presence of oxalates in food is definitely a dietary factor that lowers calcium absorption (through the formation of insoluble calcium oxalate salts).

 

For the vast majority of individuals … oxalate-containing foods should not be a health concern … For persons with health histories that make kidney stones a health concern, we recommend consultation with a healthcare provider to develop a diet plan and take other steps that can lower individual health risks.

Recipe: Weight Loss Program: Creamy Walnut Green Smoothie

Serves 4; 235 cals

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup Walnuts, raw

• 2 cups Water, boiling

• Pinch Sea Salt

Soak overnight, if possible.

In the Morning:

Drain the water and rinse in fresh water.

Add to blender with:

• 2 cups fresh Water

• 1 heaping cup Kale, washed, ribs removed and chopped

• 1 Pear, ripe, juicy, peeled, cored, chilled

• 2 Bananas, ripe, cut in pieces, frozen

• 2/3 cup Yogurt, plain

• 1/4 cup Ice, as needed

Optional:
1 to 2 tablespoons agave nectar or honey – if your fruit is ripe you should not need extra sweetening.

Blend until smooth and enjoy.

Source: Walnuts.org; WHFoods

Photo: DrinkMeHealthy