Green smoothies are an easy, popular and delicious way to get a good proportion of your daily nutritional doze.
Problem is, large cold drinks in winter may not always be the best for our digestion…and perhaps should even come with a special cold weather warning!
I just ran across a couple of Warming Winter Smoothie recipes from Alexandra Jamieson (mindbodygreen.com). She also shares 6 practical tips to help digestion in the cooler seasons, and I’ve included the first 3 right here…
Alexandra puts it this way…
Your ability to stay warm and energized may freeze up if your smoothies are too cooling energetically or if the ingredients themselves are frozen.
In a hurry? Scroll down to the next page to check out both recipes…but first:
If you have a hard time staying warm in the colder winter months, or are working to heal your digestion and want to take your smoothies to the next level, take these steps to protect your energy, chi, and digestion:
1. Think about the energetics of food.
Foods that take longer to grow, like winter squash and collards, are more warming than foods that grow quickly, like lettuce and summer squash.
2. Warm your berries.
A food is more cooling when it’s frozen than when it’s thawed.
Thaw your frozen berries overnight in the refrigerator or even leave them out for an hour on the counter to take the chill off while you do your morning run or yoga.
If you forgot to thaw your frozen berries overnight, scoop them into a plastic baggie and run under warm water before adding them to your blender.
3. Choose warmly colored ingredients.
Blue, green, and purple foods are more medicinally cooling than orange, red, and yellow foods. Think of lime as cooling, lemon as more warming.
You’ll find 2 winter warmer smoothie recipes on the Next Pages…
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Recipe 1: Alexandra’s Favorite Winter Green Smoothie
Ingredients
- 1 cup collards, packed
- ½ cup frozen cherries, defrosted overnight
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 cups almond or coconut milk
- ¼ cup almond butter
- 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled
- 20-plus grams chocolate pea protein
Preparation
- Puree all ingredients together in a blender until smooth.
Recipe 2 on Next Page: Pumpkin Spice Green Smoothie…
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Recipe 2: Pumpkin Spice Green Smoothie
Ingredients
- ½ cup pureed pumpkin or leftover mashed sweet potato
- 1 cup kale, packed
- 1 teaspoon blackstrap molasses
- 1 pear, seeds removed
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon freshly peeled ginger
- 2 cups unsweetened coconut or almond milk
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil or ½ avocado
- 20-plus grams vanilla pea protein
- pinch of nutmeg
Preparation
- Puree all ingredients together in a blender until smooth.
Source: Alexandra Jamieson
Photo courtesy Alexandra Jamieson
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