Smoothie revolution

So after reading and hearing absolutely everywhere that smoothies are the ultimate health/diet/weight loss tool (I already knew this, it just took a few more books, magazines and news reports to hammer it into my head), I'm making a smoothie for lunch (I ate a HUGE breakfast). I'll also be bringing my blender with me back to Austin so I can make smoothies for breakfast before work.

What's in the smoothie for today? Well, I'm just kind of rummaging through my fruit basket and refrigerator and so far this is what I have:

2 pears, cored and cubed
1 medium banana
2 cups cantaloupe, seeded, peeled and cubed
1 15-oz. can sliced peaches in their natural juice, no sugar added
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 cup no salt added 1% fat cottage cheese
ice cubes



According to Nutrition Data this entire recipe has 1160 calories, 24g of fat with only 4g being saturated, 203 g of carbs including 39g of fiber and 124g of sugar, 60g of protein, 235% vitamin A, 269% vitamin C!

To eat in place of lunch my guess is this yields 3-4 servings. However, if you're planning on drinking this along with something else it could yield 5-6 servings.

I've never made this recipe before, but I'll let you know how it comes out, hopefully deliciously since it'll be my lunch for the day!

If you're making the recipe for 4 servings, each serving has

290 calories
6g fat, 1g saturated
51g carbs, 10g fiber, 31g sugar
15g protein

62% calories from carbohydrates
18% from fat
20% from protein



I like the look at that break down, nicely balanced. Usually I like to add soy milk to my smoothies and protein powder, however, here at my parent's house they don't have protein powder. That made me think what I could use to boost the protein since otherwise I'd have a carb-packed smoothie which would spike my blood sugar too quickly. Cottage cheese has a higher protein content than soy milk or yogurt per cup serving so I thought - bingo! The wheat germ and flaxseed add nice amounts of healthy fats, extra protein, fiber, not to mention countless other great things such as folic acid, vitamin E, omega-3s and more!

Much of that fiber comes from the fruit itself, the skin of the pears, the banana, the cantaloupe. They all have a nice amount of fiber in them. Sure, the sugar content is high, but it's all natural sugars from fruit and you get SO many benefits from all the other nutrients in the fruit that it's not like eating a piece of cake with 31g of sugar in it where you get absolutely no benefits.

So enjoy!

The verdict?

I think next time I'd definitely put only 1/2 a banana. Bananas have a way of overpowering every other flavor. You can't even taste the pear or cantaloupe and you can barely taste the peaches. Also, the flavor of cottage cheese is quite potent. If that bothers you I'd use 1/2 cup cottage cheese and 1/2 cup milk, that not only will lessen the flavor of cottage cheese but also make the smoothie less thick. After a lot of ice cubes the consistency was thin enough for me and the cottage cheese flavor was pretty much gone. It was nicely sweet, but the banana was still the dominant flavor.