My Daily Multi-Vitamin: Smoothies!

The photo above shows my breakfast following an 11+ mile run this past Sunday. I almost always have a LARGE (40-70oz) smoothie at some point during the day, typically for breakfast. Smoothies are great in many ways, including being convenient. Simply place your desired ingredients in the container and blend. Pour it in a bottle, and you can take it with you to work, the gym, or wherever you need to go. Smoothies are also a great way to pack in raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, AKA nutrition. Blending breaks down the cell walls of plants, enabling easier digestion and unlike juicing, the fiber is retained.

This particular smoothie has approximately 2 bananas, 4 dates, 2 tbs of chia seeds, a several leaves of rainbow chard, 2 red beets, 1 cup of berries, as well as a couple cups of water. In terms of nutrition, it is packed with over 18g of protein, a large % of my RDI of 5 B vitamins, 70% of Folate, 70% vitamin A, 100% vitamin C, 30% vitamin E 1300% vitamin K, and large percentages of minerals, including 40% calcium, and 100% of iron.

If you are serious about smoothies, it is worthwhile to invest in a high speed blender, such as a Vitamix or Blendtec. These high quality blenders are not cheap and I consider myself relatively frugal. However, after struggling with and breaking numerous inexpensive blenders that did not work well, we invested in a Vitamix, which comes with a muti-year warranty, and quality customer service.