How to make the perfect fruit smoothie

by Paul Goodchild on April 23, 2009

Fruit Smoothie

It was nearly 10 years ago when I was introduced to fruit smoothies. Milkshakes and fruit juices, sure, but putting a heap fruits into a blender was something that never occurred to me.

The beauty of fruit smoothies is how absolutely easy it is with such a massive health benefit.

The huge benefit of fruit smoothies

I’ve always had a habit of bolting my food… I typically inhale my meals and move on.

Eating is functional and I rarely take time to really enjoy it.  By bolting my food I never chew it enough and half the goodness in the food is lost before it can be digested.

Blending up fruits and drinking it saves my body a heap of effort in breaking the food down and extracting the goodness. There’s no need to chew and liquid smoothies are incredibly easy for the body to get at what is there.

I believe, based on research I’ve read and my own experience, that there is no other food group better for you than fruits, vegetables, and nuts etc. Anything our body needs is found in them and there’s little need to supplement our diets if we’re eating them in good quantities.

I have a sweet tooth so I lean more heavily towards fruits, and they require much less work to prepare compared to vegetables.  Some vegetables are great, but typically they need to be boiled, fried, or otherwise.  For taste and ease alone, fruits rock my world!

Vitamin supplements simply aren’t enough

There is the idea that we can eat as we feel like and then fix up our health with vitamin and mineral supplements.  While these probably do no harm in moderation, and I’m prone to take Vit. C supplements, I otherwise can’t see the need for them.

I understand that if you’re unwell you might want the boost they can provide, or that calcium and iron supplements for women are recognised as sometimes necessary.  Still, with a very healthy & balanced diet, vitamin supplement should be unnecessary and I wonder how often they are used deliberately to offset a crap diet.

The downside of fruit smoothies

Move along … nothing to see here.

What do you need to make a fruit smoothie?

A blender

Without this you’re going to find it a time-consuming challenge to liquidize the fruits.  Perhaps making your fruit smoothie manually will be great exercise for you, and maybe I’ll add this to my workout routine one day, but I can’t speak from experience of how effective that would be.

!Don’t get caught up to go buy the “Super-duper fruit smoothie über blender pro deluxe“.  All you need is a blender with an on/off switch.  The name on the box doesn’t need to have any reference to “smoothie”.  For example, here is something excessive, even though it looks shiny and is very pretty.  This blender will do the job perfectly well.

Juice

Depending on your taste preference, you’ll want a dose of your favourite fruit juice.  I’m not talking about sweetened kiddies juice like Ribena, but rather 100% pure fruit juice, such as either apple or orange.  I prefer apple in a smoothie with it being a little sweeter, and the taste is more subtle than citrus orange in the mix.  This is personal preference so you should experiment with others to find your optimum mix – some options are grapefruit, grape, or even a mix juice base.

Fruit

I have a fairly standard set of base fruits that I use, and everything else is bonus material.  A banana is, for me, the base of the smoothie – it’s thick, starchy and provides much of the energy in the drink.  It also tastes great!  Together with this then I’ll add berries of some description.  Currently the standard is blueberry – little bombs of goodness and I consider them practically essential to the mix.  Basically just add to your desired taste.

Raspberries and kiwi are fantastic also, and they also “zest” the fruit smoothie up a bit.

Watermelon rocks and also makes the smoothie more fluid and easier to drink.  A tip here, if you’re picky about this (which I am), remove the seeds/pips from the watermelons before you blend.  I find it ruins a smoothie to have these tough bits in the mix.  This adds a little to the prep time but it’s worth it.

Yellow melon and grapes are delicious in the mix.  (obviously no pith here is important)

Oranges and grapefruit (as well as orange juice) are good, but for me neither a favourite nor essential.  I’m not a grapefruit fan so I never include them.

Bio-Yoghurt

An essential part for me of the smoothie is the addition of a bio-yoghurt of some sort.  Frankly I believe this to be one of the greatest benefits I receive from smoothies since it improves your overall digestive process. It also helps to add a nice consistency to the smoothie mix.

Quantities and how to mix the smoothie

Mixing up smoothies isn’t an exact science – don’t let the problem of how much of each thing to put in, hinder you.

Anything can go into a smoothie!  Just buy a bunch of fruits, throw them into a blender with a some pure fruit juice and you’re done.  Mix and match depending on your mood or what’s available and if you can buy your berries frozen you’ll save a little on costs and also make a very chilled drink which can be ideal when it’s hot.  Alternatively you can just add ice cubes.

I wrote this article because of that last paragraph (and my last post on dieting) – maybe people feel there’s a particular method or certain combo to try… for me, if I make a smoothie with apple juice, bio yoghurt, a banana and some berries, I’m a happy.  Everything else is just extra goodness.

So, experiment.  Don’t splash out on a special smoothie maker – just buy or use a blender you already have – and tuck in!

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

Heather April 26, 2009 at 05:58

Hiya Paul
I love smoothies too and they are just so easy to make.
I generally like quite a few types of berries in my smoothies and found that unless I was having a smoothie every day, some of the berries could go off quite quickly.

So a great tip is when you buy a punnet each of fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries etc, divide the excess into small boxes with an even mixture in each box. Roughly about the amount you would need for a single smoothie and freeze the boxes. This means that you always have a mixture of fruits ready in the freezer and you only need to take out one box at a time. Also the only fresh ingredients you need are fruit juice and bananas.

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Jim July 21, 2009 at 06:20

Hi paul About a month I started having a health problem,feet swelling,and burning some say it’s age I’m 71 I’ve never been sick more than a couple of days.but one morning seem like crazy things started happening with my body,burning feet, heart palpations,so I fasted a couple of days,then I realized I had vita-mix machine that I had used just mostly for smoothies.Just sitting there for three years seldom used,then it hit me I could make smoothies out of all the veggies i did’nt like to eat with fruits.it amazing how much better I feel feet not swelling just a little sometimes when I spend too many hours on the computer.meats I’m not craving some of my mixes of veggies and fruit i’m full.I think I’m enjoying eating a whole lot less meats

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Smoothie January 30, 2011 at 08:11

Now let’s grab some frozen fruit. You can make frozen smoothies with just about any type of fruit and of course also combinations of fruit. Some simple ones to start with are strawberries, bananas and peaches.

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Richard May 9, 2012 at 11:43

Really you can include so many different healthy, nutritious foods in a smoothie . Thank you for posting these recipes!

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